


Butcher with a Smile

by LezBlowShitUp



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, And Kags wants him to cut harder, Angst with a Happy Ending, BDSM, Bisexual Kageyama Tobio, Body Worship, Coming Out, Emotional Edging, Hair-pulling, Hand & Finger Kink, Hinata is a butcher with a smile, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Jealousy, Kags really hates Atsumu (fair warning), M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of POLY Iwaoi, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Neurodivergent Kageyama, Oh My God, Olympics, POV Kageyama Tobio, Porn with Feelings, Possessive Behavior, Post-Time Skip, Power Bottom Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Hinata Shouyou, Pro Volleyball Player Kageyama Tobio, Routine, Slow Burn, This gets addressed, Twitter, emotion heavy, he does Hinata's nails
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26792806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LezBlowShitUp/pseuds/LezBlowShitUp
Summary: Training for the Tokyo Olympics isn't going the way Kageyama thought it would. He's waited his whole life for this chance—to fight on the highest stage with his greatest rival, to let Hinata carve victory from him like meat from bone. Kageyama will make the first cut and toss him the knife if it means winning. But Hinata's spending way too much time at Miya Atsumu's side, instead of where he belongs._______Or... Kags is twisted around Hinata's demon pinkie and doesn't realize that he's brutally in love with him.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Comments: 97
Kudos: 705





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kags is in denial.

**Kageyama’s POV**

With Hinata on the court, I’m a beast in a slaughterhouse, and he’s the butcher. He smiles—all teeth and greed—sharp enough to slash open my belly, to bite into my folded guts, to drag and drag and drag until I unravel and give him anything he wants. 

And I do because he jumps before anyone else—arched and flexed to his thighs—licking through the air like a butcher’s blade. 

Sweat melts down my chin. My sneakers hit the floor. We’ve challenged each other thousands of times, played hundreds of matches together, but all that matters is this game, now—afternoon practice of our Olympic training camp. And I have to move faster.

The volleyball kisses my fingertips. Every thud of my sneakers to the gym floor, a drumbeat in my chest. I notice everything. I can take in all twelve players on the court, every move they make, and where the ball is. I am the best setter in Japan. Every millimeter of me is awake, alive. I toss the ball, and he’s here—slayer fast—killing it down the other side.

Heat presses at the bottom of my stomach. I’m panting as the game ends, hunched over, clutching my knees, a grin like a wound on my lips, too gaping and raw to hold back. Fuck, I missed this, missed him.

In the sixty-four years that volleyball has been an Olympic sport, Japan has only reached a podium finish three times. Only once have we won gold. I’ve slaved my entire career—my entire life really—to change that. 

I’m on this stage now for the second time, and I’ve never wanted anything more. Not that I have a choice. Hinata will carve the victory from me like meat from bone if he needs to. 

I’ll let him. I’ll make the first cut and toss him the knife if it means winning. I bet he knows that. I bet that’s why he stands at my side. 

❖

After practice, the whole team sinks to the gym floor for our cool-down routines when Miya snags the back of Hinata’s elbow—all familiarly—and says, “Come hit a few more tosses for me, yeah?” 

I want Hinata to sit by me, to stretch out like the old days, because I’ve waited five long years to be on the same team, and here we finally are.

Of course, Hinata follows Miya, though. Asking Hinata to hit tosses is worse than hanging a prime steak in front of a starving man. 

“So...” Yaku says from opposite me where he’s bending over to touch his toes, nodding toward where Hinata’s jumping for a quick. (Miya’s set is slow. I could’ve gotten the ball to him faster.) “You two have a lot of history, huh?” 

Sweat is trailing from the beige spikes of Yaku’s bangs down his forehead. We never spoke back in high school. All I know is he’s Nekoma’s old libero. 

“We’re rivals,” I say, laying back against the gym floor, stretching my knee up to my chest. _Rival_ is as good as any other word to describe what Hinata and I are. None of them fit right somehow. “He swore he’d beat me back in middle school. I told him where I was aiming, and he didn’t back down.”

“You’re kidding,” Yaku says. 

I frown because _no,_ I was not kidding. Why would I be? The thud of Hinata’s sneakers kicking off into a jump vibrates the floor under my head. His jumps are so powerful now. Over all this time since he made it into the Black Jackals, he’s only gotten better.

“Well,” Yaku says, pulling me back to our conversation. “How come you still call each other by your last names. Isn’t that...” He rubs the back of his head with a twitchy smile. “Weird?”

I shrug. This is the way it’s always been. Yeah, it’s weird. Everything with Hinata is. He’s a freak. 

“Right…” Yaku’s brows screw up. “For some reason, I thought you two were–um...” He exchanges a glance across from me with Ushijima who's shaking his head. But I don’t care what Yaku’s trying to say anyway because oh-so-friendly-Miya Atsumu has his arm snaked across Hinata’s shoulders, and a hand buried in his hair—where it doesn’t belong. 

Back in high school, that would have been me. Hinata would’ve been hanging off of me, beaming with gratitude for my extra tosses, and we would've cooled down together. He never spent enough time rolling the tendons on his ankles, so I'd have to glare at him until he took care of himself. Eventually, he always gave in. (Not cause he ever dreamed he could get injured—I think it was just to make sure I’d keep giving him sets.)(How many setters have tossed for him by now?)

I bite the inside of my cheek and stifle the twinge in my chest. It’s fine. What’s important is that today, Hinata won by _my_ hand. He better remember that. 

❖

I’m stretching my quads out with a band when Hinata drops to the floor beside me, flat on his back. He’s panting and laying awkwardly, with his arm sorta pinched at the elbow under his ribs, fingers twitching.

“Oi.” I kick at his hip with the heel of my sneaker, and he’s so sweaty his body just sorta slides on the glossy floorboards. “You’re letting your arm fall asleep.” 

“Too tired to move,” Hinata groans.

“Oh, ho!" Miya squints down at me as he strolls over. "How observant Tobio-kun.” He pats Hinata on the head as if it’s not his fault Hinata is totally wiped out. 

Bokuto wiggles his eyebrows as he draws an arm across his chest. “You haven't noticed Kageyama's shrimpy senses?”

“Hm, yeah," Miya drawls. "Don’t-cha notice a bit too much, Mr. Number One Setter?”

I don’t like the weirdo tone he has—like he’s trying to start something, but also kinda suggestive—so I ignore him and kick at Hinata’s side again, hard enough that he rolls over, away from Miya’s hand. (There, problem solved.)

Only, Hinata’s shirt is so wet with sweat it’s sticking high to the center of his back, exposing so much skin... 

I swallow and throw a towel over where his tan line starts right at the band of his shorts. (Miya doesn’t get to see that.) Hinata’s been home for almost three years, but he got so dark from all those Brazilian beach matches, I’m not sure his skin will ever fade back to how it used to be.

I decided, for the hundredth time, not to think about how a tan on his back means he used to play shirtless. (Fucking brazen.)

❖

By five o’clock, I’ve showered and started pulling food out of the fridge for dinner. We all live here at the training center, each of us has our own bedroom, but we’ve been sharing this main living space for these six months leading up to the Tokyo Olympics. “Team bonding,” Coach Hibarida said, “To form you into one smooth organism.”

I get what he meant. Living together, training together, dressing in the same uniform—we're all bound to blur into each other. Like at the end of my first year of high school, after so many hours of practice with Karasuno, my sister, Miwa, visited home. She said something I knew would make Hinata smile like a lunatic (the kind that’s so wide you can see his top molars), and I didn't realize the smile had snuck onto _my_ face until Miwa gasped and grabbed at my cheeks. 

If you spend too much time with someone, the lines between you smear.

The team kitchen is shadowy with dim light as I load the leftovers from yesterday onto two plates. (Four mackerel filets: two servings of protein each. Two soft boiled eggs: a healthy fat. 400 grams of brown ginger rice: a multigrain. And 340 grams of Spinach Ohitashi: a vegetable. It all totals out to about 1,400 calories each.)

Hinata’s climbing onto the counter and stretching a hand out to get something way out of reach (probably a crispy fried salmon skin, he’s a menace for those). He catches Ushijima—who's minding his own business, warming a pot of noodles on the burner—by the shoulder, and leverages himself higher. And Ushijima—greatest of all aces Ushijima—hunches down so Hinata can reach him, use him. 

This is what we all do, what Hinata can make us do. If not to win, then because of his brightness and energy, and smiles. No one can resist. 

That doesn’t mean I’ll allow it, though. If Hinata reaches any further his shirt is gonna ride up, and everyone will get their second eyeful today of the tan line shading over his hip bone. Not an option.

I grab the box of salmon skins from the top shelf and glare at Hinata. “Get down before you fall on your ass.”

He spends so much time in the air, I think he forgets about falling.

The first night we got here, Bokuto passed drinks around. Hinata got blackout drunk and took the stairs to the roof. By the time I caught up, he was standing off the edge, reaching for the stars (literally), and shouting, “I made it, Kageyama. We’re at the top now. Nothing can bring us down.” I had to throw him over my shoulder and haul him back to his room before one of us forgot he couldn’t actually fly. I almost didn’t make it down all the stairs. He'd gotten so much heavier since the last time I tried carrying him—stronger.

Hinata slides off the counter as I carry our plates over to the table where some of the others are already digging into their meals. Aran is flipping on the news in the living room off to the side, and Bokuto is having a not so quiet but definitely private conversation with someone on the phone in the hall that I’m really trying not to listen to. When Hinata settles in next to me and shoves the first mouthful of food in his face, I press my lips together to keep off a satisfied grin. 

Hinata’s my partner. Forget all the rest, he fought like hell to make it here, so I’ll be damned sure he can rely on me now that we’re back on the same team.

“Shouyou, how many balls did you spike today?” Hoshiumi asks over his chicken katsu.

Who told him he could use his first name like that?

“Er." Hinata scratches his head as he plops down (This brute never sits like a normal person. He’s got to crouch with his feet on the chair and everything). "Maybe like a hundred and twenty?”

“Ha!” Hoshiumi slaps the table. “I hit a hundred and fifty. I win.” He smirks.

Hinata immediately bristles, springing up to lurch over his plate at Hoshiumi. “But I wasn't even keeping track. That's cheati–”

I shove him back into his seat. "What's going on here?"

"Just checking in with my rival.” Hoshiumi brushes a crumb off his shoulder. This smug piece of shit.

“No way,” I say. I started waiting for someone like Hinata all the way back when I was a kid. Someone who’d run fast enough, jump high enough, who’d train harder than me. I needed someone to challenge me—beat me. (What’s the point of playing when all the wins come easy?) “He's already _my_ rival.” 

“You don't own him!"

I glare, but Hinata smushes a hand in my face. "Course, he doesn't!" He’s glowing red as he lets me go, rubbing the back of his neck with a chuckle. "We can be, like, poly.” 

Hoshiumi frowns. "Polymer?”

Sakusa grumbles across from me into his thermos. (He won't touch any of the mugs in the team kitchen and insists on using that metal thing. Some point about bacteria's life span on aluminum.) “Polyamorous, you idiot,” he says. 

Whatever the fuck that means, it’s not fair. I had dibs on being Hinata’s rival. I’ve waited the longest.

❖

Later, the whole team is camped out between the floor and the couches watching old Argentinian Federation matches. Like a movie night, but not since it’s research—we’re up against Argentina in the preliminaries. And we only have a few more weeks to study until we leave for the Olympic Village. 

The lights are out, so the blue and red court colors in the video glow over the living room. Hinata’s sitting next to me on the couch, shivering from the ice bath he just took. It's fine. I have a blanket, and I don’t care about sharing (like I said, I’m used to being mushed together with him)—but as he cozies in, half mashing me into the arm of the couch, a fine wire of heat burns through me, which makes no sense cause he’s jabbing frozen toes into my calf.

I jerk my leg away from the shock of cold, nearly kicking Hakuba in the head where he’s sitting on the floor in front of me. “What are you, a squirrel?” I ask. Baby squirrels snuggle together to keep warm—I saw it on TV once. Actually, Hinata could pass for a squirrel (he’s fuzzy enough)—a flying squirrel maybe... Or a flying squirrel with rabies.

Telling him off is useless, as usual, Hinata doesn’t listen, just wriggles closer and shoves both of his feet under my leg, sticking his tongue out. 

I should pinch it in my fingers, and watch him choke... That'd be a good look on him.

I’m still growling as Miya slides over, all buddy-buddy, pulling his sweatshirt over his torso and holding it out. “Here you go, Shouyou, I can get you warm.”

Wait—I stiffen—that’s not what I wanted, and apparently, every asshole here thinks they can call him by his first name, except me. The word eats at me as Hinata crawls right over to him and pulls the sweatshirt on. It’s too big, and all the extra material bunches around his collar and buries half his ears (he’s got these tiny pointy ones that twitch whenever food is close). Then Miya-fucking-Atsumu slithers his wormy arm around him again to grope the curve of Hinata’s shoulder.

If we were facing off in the middle of a game, this dropping feeling would mean I just missed Miya’s floating serve—the sneaky kind that suddenly lands where you weren’t prepared for it. We're not in the middle of a game, though.

I want to pry Miya’s fingers off of him one by one and drag Hinata back over to my side—warm against my leg—where he belongs. 

I can’t... right now, crowded on all sides by our team. That would mean something, I think. But, on the court, I don’t care if I have to fight Miya or whoever else to make sure Hinata knows who his setter is.

❖

Every morning of training camp, I get up at six am and knock on Hinata’s door until he slugs out, with his eyes more than halfway closed and hair wild. He’s not alive yet. It takes a solid hour of morning routine before Hinata looks anything close to a human. When he’s like this, I could move his limbs like a rag doll if I wanted...

Hinata collapses at the group table while I mix shakes in the blender for the both of us. (Two bananas for potassium. 100 grams of oats for energy. 700 milliliters of milk for calcium. And two scoops of protein powder—chocolate for me and strawberry for Hinata since he likes it best.)(With the intense training we do, we both have to hit over 3,500 calories by the end of the day, so this gets us a solid 650 before breakfast.) We chug them down, and Hinata's cheeks go full as he tries to drink too much at once.

My fingers twitch with the urge to squish them as Hinata swallows and rubs the sleep from his eyes. He almost looks like he's ready to manage speaking real words. Now we can eat some actual food.

I shove a bowl of tamago kake gohan out in front of him. (It’s his favorite. He better be grateful.)

Miya oversleeps, and when he finally shows up, he crunches sluggishly through his cereal. That means he'll be a little slow in his hybrid serve when we play later. Bokuto, on the other hand, is downing three sweet potatoes, so I'll have to look out for his energy when I set to him today.

A burning smell is curling in from the kitchen. Yaku probably fell asleep cooking his toast again. And across the table, Hoshiumi is texting away as Hinata and I eat. I can tell it's his girlfriend cause he always gets that mousey look on his face whenever it's her. They’ve been dating for two years, but I still can't get over how strange it is that Hoshiumi has this whole identity that's completely separate from volleyball. A lot of our teammates do. Hinata does…

Hinata is dripping egg yoke over his pajama pants cause he can’t sit like a normal person with his legs _under_ the fucking table.

For the most part, we’ve picked up where we left off after all that time he was away and then on a different team. Yeah, he's changed a little—grown-up. He's had a life since he left for Brazil and the three years he played for the Black Jackals. Still now even.

Not me, though. I guess that's not normal. The faces around me have changed through my career, but I always play the same position. My job stays the same. Train. Watch over my spikers. Get them the ball. Wait until I get my real partner back because he fucking promised.

No one was like Hinata. The way he fills everything with energy—fills me with…

I rub away a clump of rice glued to his face. 

...No one could be like him.

Whatever that means about me, at least, when we're on the court, and I have a volleyball in my hands, I know who I am and what I need to do. 

❖

“They’re calling it a family quarrel, did you know?” Iwaizumi says as we settle into our individual warm-ups. I’ve got a set of planks and burpees to run through straight off the bat. He makes us do these for twice as long as the trainer on the Adlers did, but I have to admit my joints are less sore at the end of the day than they used to be, even though I’m practicing harder. 

“What’s a family thing-a-ma-jig?” Hinata asks, voice all muffled with his chin tucked in and body folded in some kinda headstand, cradling his neck and pumping his legs in an upside-down, way-harder-version of a crunch that probably works the shit out of his thighs too. (Iwaizumi designed all Hinata’s and Hoshiumi’s warm-ups this way to take stress off their knees since they abuse them even more than the rest of us.)

Iwaizumi holds out his phone, so we can see some article with an annoyingly familiar picture of Oikawa and Hinata in Brazil. “How the hell did they get that thing?” I ask.

Iwaizumi snorts. “Probably trashy-kawa posted it all over his Twitter.”

I drop out of my plank and snatch the phone from him, scrolling through the rest of the article as Hinata scuttles out of his headstand-crunch to look over my shoulder. He’s panting, from the effort, warm against my ear as he _oohs_ and _ahhs_ at all the attention the article pays him, reading under his breath, “Life-long partners and rivals facing off on the highest stage…”

There are pictures of Iwaizumi and Oikawa at nationals in their Aoba Johsai uniforms, pictures of our team from my first year at Kitagawa Daiichi, a picture of Hinata two meters in the air with his eyes closed and my toss millimeters from his hand. (He's been a menace since the start, hasn't he?) And another, different beach picture with Oikawa draped over Hinata from behind. His hooded eyes are meeting Hinata's loose grin, and there's something so… I'm afraid to let myself name how it makes me feel because _that's_ off-limits.

Iwazumi must’ve been right about the Twitter thing because this photo comes with a screenshot of Oikawa’s post saying, _Setting to my favorite spiker!_

“How much did you two play together anyway?” I grumble.

“Wah, I don’t know. A bunch.” Hinata motions wide with his hands. “Great King’s tosses are _so_ good!”

My chest tightens, and I chuck the phone back at Iwaizumi. He just manages to catch it. 

“For that,” Iwaizumi says, karate-chopping me on the head. “I’m gonna make you do two extra sets of leg lifts.” 

I don't care. I need to do them. The harder I work, the easier it will be to forget this burn I shouldn’t be feeling. This lingering nausea from how Oikawa looked at Hinata in that photo...

How Hinata looked back.

❖

I wake up at night. I don’t know what time it is, but the glow slicing through the blinds leaves bruise-colored streaks over my bedroom wall. My bangs itch against my forehead, and it's too warm to fall back asleep with my blanket on, but there's an AC draft crawling in from under the door, so I can’t ditch it either.

No, that’s not the problem. What's wrong are the hazy images that followed me out of my dream. The curved shape of a girl bending over. A glint in lidded eyes. (I won't say the color.) Legs around me like a vice.

It's been too long. I haven't been paying attention, so _need_ found me in my sleep. This is the one part of my routine I don't schedule because when I leave this room in the morning it won't exist.

There's a piece of me I only let out when I'm under the covers where no one can see. A piece that lives at night. That's the one time I'm allowed the kind of busy hands that _should_ touch thinking only of girls but don't.

❖

At afternoon practice, Coach Hibarida pulls me aside for a lecture before our match starts. “You’ve been taking it easy, Kageyama.” 

I’m staring, trying to keep my face from moving. “Taking it easy, sir?”

He’s standing with his hands on his hips. “I don’t see you doing anything but going through the motions out there.” Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he sighs. “You’re the best setter I have _only_ as long as you fight to remain the best. Tell me you're going to start fighting again.”

Miya is bouncing a volleyball against the floor off to the left— _bam, bam, bam_. This isn’t how things are supposed to go. I squeeze my fists at my sides and swallow past the knot in my chest. “Understood.”

“Good.” He pats me on the shoulder, and then it’s over, but I’m still reeling cause I’ve got no idea what he means.

❖

Hibarida sends Hinata to Miya’s team for our six on six. Hinata’s body is a red stream, rolling through a flawless receive, crouching low to the ground, thighs straining as he adjusts his stance ever-so-slightly for balance. 

I can’t do the thing he does, that all the others do, I think—where he hyper focuses on what’s in front of him and blocks out the rest. I’ve got focus, yeah. But my focus reaches far. The court is a map in my mind, open and alive down to every detail. 

It’s not anything I trained. I can’t turn it off. I notice everything all the time. This is what makes me strong. 

My pulse is jumping in my throat. My hands ache to toss to Hinata. I can’t. He’s the enemy. _Don’t send him the ball_ , I have to keep reminding myself, or my fingers will tilt without thinking, and he’ll draw me in—the greatest decoy. He really did it. He made it like he always said he would.

I can’t stop thinking about Hinata in that picture, jumping with his eyes closed. I forgot he used to do that, back when we first joined Karasuno and he couldn’t hit for shit—me holding all the puppet strings, him jumping for anything I'd give him. It had meant a lot then when my last team only saw poison in my tosses. Hinata—there whenever I wanted. Hinata—grateful, even for my worst tosses.

There was a time in second year at Karasuno that I'd shoot him bad tosses on purpose just to watch him leap for them. 

Not anymore. He's demanding, and he’ll take nothing short of perfection. Probably cause he knows the truth—he's got me, and I’m not going anywhere. He’s my rival, my person. I’m sticking by him for good. 

But, for this practice game, the one who gets to toss for Hinata isn’t me, it’s Miya.

It’s Miya, tossing Hinata quicks. Miya, gushing at him when he scores the last point, and the game ends. Miya with his hands all over him, tucking Hinata under his arm, messing with the orange nest on his head. All evidence of the real Hinata—bloodthirsty Hinata—is gone. 

Now he’s shining from praise, acting all wide-eyed and sunshine-y. Well, not acting, that’s not what I mean. It's not that being ruthless when it comes to volleyball is his real side or a hidden part. He's a butcher and bright enough to give you a sunburn all at once. It doesn't make sense, I know. Only Hinata could manage something so off-the-wall nuts. 

“Shouyou, Shouyou," Miya croons. "That was perfect.” His voice is an insect wriggling up my spine. 

_Shouyou, Shouyou, Shouyou, Shouyou, Shouyou_ – Why does he get to say his name when I–

The back of my neck burns. I'm moving, and before I know what I'm gonna do, I'm already on the other side of the net, snatching Hinata by the elbow, away from Miya's paws. 

I ignore the dumb gape on Hinata’s face. “I need this guy for a second,” I spit, tugging Hinata with me off the court and out the door. I don’t let him go until I’ve found an empty, unlit, hallway, and shove him against a papered bulletin board. 

Aggression isn’t enough to make Hinata back down. I should know, we’ve fought thousands of times, and it’s the same now. He sticks his chin up at me and bares his teeth.

My heart is racing, and my whole body is drawn tight. The advertisements on the bulletin board scream at me in blaring colors. I’m so mad, I don’t know what to do. I’m so mad, and it’s not even at Hinata—I don’t know who it’s at (Miya, myself?), but here I’ve got him. I want to wrestle him flat to the wall, yank at his stupid-perfect orange hair, bite his lip where it’s twitching in a sneer, and smash my mouth into his, and _and_ …. Kiss him– All I want is to kiss him. Fuck.

"What the hell, Yama, why are you so worked up?" 

Right, right, because no, actually Hinata hasn’t done anything wrong, and probably I’m the one in the wrong here. Overreacting, lashing out… My cheeks sting. But still! Still– “Since when do you let that asshole call you by your first name?”

Hinata freezes, mouth falling open. “Huh?”

I glare. I don’t know what else to do with the pressure inside me, threatening to surge.

“We’re friends…" Hinata trails off. "You know?” 

They’re friends, alright— _friends, friends, friends_ … So what are we, then? I don’t think I want the answer, though. Clearly, it’s nothing good enough for first names. I stumble back, hands fisting at my sides. Sure, fine, I get it.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Hinata is throwing his hands up in my face as if that could distract me. A sucker punch to the jugular is hard to miss.

"Stop it with the growling already!” he shouts. “Obviously, you’re my friend too."

"I'll stop when you explain to me–" _what I did wrong... why I’m not as good as him..._ I don’t know what I was gonna say, but Hinata smothers a hand over my mouth, so I don’t get that far. 

"I said, stop!"

The skin of his palm is warm and calloused against my lips. He’s not gentle. He’s bitten up his nails, and they scratch into the hollows of my cheeks.

"You could’ve called me that too…" he says, hostility sagging out of him. Hinata drops his chin—ducking his head—and his hand drops from my mouth with it. "Ages ago. I woulda let you."

I let out a disbelieving breath that drains the tension from my body just to sub in a humiliating twist of hope. "Yeah?" my voice cracks.

He presses his lips together and nods. "Yeah." 

All along, even in my head, I’ve only ever thought of him as Hinata. Thinking Shouyou, instead, is so so _so_ much more private—the kind of thing that should be whispered over a pillow not passed in an echoey hallway. It’s a stone in my chest, an ache on the roof of my mouth written in letters I’m scared to speak. 

Even in this dark, I can tell the tops of Hinata’s ears are blazing bright as his hair, but he still won't look at me.

That’s no good—not if I’m gonna make this count, getting this much and nothing else—so I grab him by the shoulders, by the jaw—he has to look at me. 

He does. 

It doesn’t slow the speed of my heart rate. I draw in a breath, careful to make sure my voice doesn’t waver. "Shou-you."

His eyes widen, and I swear I feel the leap of his throat against my thumb as he swallows.

Then…

After all the time I’ve spent watching him, analyzing every little detail of his behavior so I can tell when he’s too tired to jump as high as normal, or too strung out to hit a faint, I know what he’s gonna do as he straightens his back and licks his lips. (This idiot has never backed out of a challenge in his life.) But, that doesn’t mean I’m prepared when he says, "Tobio!"

A shiver chaces dread through me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This all started when I couldn’t stop thinking about Twenty One Pilot’s Tear in My Heart. “My heart is my armor. She's the tear in my heart, she's a carver. She's a butcher with a smile, cut me farther...than I've ever been.” Honestly, this song was my entire bridge into Kag’s voice (or at least my headcanon version of his voice).
> 
> If you enjoyed the first chapter of this story, you can like or share the link on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lezblowshitup/status/1312403308666118144)
> 
> Here are all my [links](https://lezblowshtup.carrd.co/) :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kags pines. And he really really likes Hinata’s legs.

Wanting to kiss Hinata Shouyou has got to be the worst thing I’ve ever admitted to myself. I can't stop thinking about it—at breakfast when his cheeks are so full I want to pop them between my teeth, during our warm-up when we're running laps and he smiles the whole world at me, and I have to struggle to keep my feet on the ground, and now, as I’m hunched over the locker room sink trying to clip a piece of my thumbnail that chipped off during a falling receive earlier, and Shouyou skips in with a sing-songy, "To-bi-o."

He says it all the time these days, like a backed-up pipe that’s only just burst. Tobio this and Tobio that. Suddenly it’s as if he can't ask for a water bottle or a stretching belt without using my name. Hearing it from him hasn't gotten any easier yet. (If this challenge were on the weight bench, I'd be doing supersets by now.)

"Geeze, you're always so like, groomed, Tobio." Shouyou elbows me, and I try to take a calming breath. 

He's so fucking close. I can smell him. And he's done it again today. 

Once in a while, Shouyou forgets to roll-on deodorant in the morning. Today, the sharp bite of his sweat was already unmistakable by our first break. 

I spot Sakusa glaring through the steamed haze of the mirror. He’s at the sink next to mine with his face mask back on. Honestly, I’m surprised Sakusa even takes it off for practice with how tense he gets over germs. 

(Shouyou tried to explain the germ thing to me once. He said it was like when I couldn't stop thinking about all the ways things could go wrong with Karusuno, but probably rougher—like that anxiety, but on roids. I don't know how Shouyou always gets what people are really like in their heads, but I'm pretty sure he was right.) (Hm… _Shouyou._ That feels good.)

"I can't believe you keep nail clippers in your gym bag."

"Maybe you should too, asshole," I say, eyeing Shouyou’s jagged, bitten down nails. What would they feel like raking across my back?

“Here.” He hitches himself onto the counter and dangles his hands in front of me, prim as a prince for half a second until his mouth breaks into a goofy smile. “Do mine.”

I grab one of his hands and wrestle him down because I have a better idea for how to do this. He barely puts on a show of resistance, so he's gotta be fine with it. Shouyou is impossible to pin when he wants to be free. (I’ve been on the receiving end of his scratchy elbows enough to know). As built as he's gotten, he still fits snugly under my chin and between my arms. I guess I’ve gotten bigger too.

If I hunch forward a little more, I could brush my lips against his hair. 

I almost do. 

I don't know what's gotten into me. 

Maybe I just need an excuse to hold him close. Cause, as long as I keep him here, pinned between me and the lip of the sink, no one else will wander over and hog him. For now, I'm the one closest to him, and he’s letting me hold him. If you could call all these blurred lines holding.

I fit the nail clipper around the rough edge of his pinkie nail and make my first snip. (Believe me, by the way, I know Shouyou only _looks_ like he needs someone to take care of him—probably, because of how small he is. But, actually—no matter how much of a spoiled brat he can be—I've never met anyone who needed less babying in my life.)(Only that doesn't stop me from wanting to trim his fingers in case he nicks himself by accident.)

Everything about our bodies pressed together, soaked in sweat and overheated should be gross, but isn't. 

The rest of the team is scattered through the locker room. Hoshiumi is unlacing his sneakers on the bench, Aran is trying to get his bag to zip right, and Bokuto and Ushijima are changing into fresh clothes from their lockers. None of them bat an eye at us. No one else seems to care about Shouyou's BO either since they haven’t said anything about it yet. His smell is a grubby sting in my nostrils. But, secretly, I like it…

I know that's weird. 

Shouyou makes me disgusting.

As I finish trimming his first hand, I reach for the second and catch Shouyou watching me through the mirror. His bug eyes are zeroed in on my face—pupils flared, barely blinking.

I stare back because I’ve only seen him make this hyper-focused expression during the heat of a game, and I don’t understand why he’s making it now. 

People’s faces are annoying. They have all these little things that hint at what's beneath. Pinchy brows make smiles unsure. Slitted eyes turn grins to smirks. Tense, unmoving cheeks show how uncomfortable someone is. Way, _way_ too many mini expressions that all play out back to back, like some shifting, billion piece puzzle I’m supposed to solve in the second I get a look at it before it changes.

Shouyou licks his lips and flicks his eyes away, down to our hands.

I still don’t know what that was. I don’t get how anyone could.

❖

Wednesday warm-ups start with racing Shouyou on the track that loops around the training center. It’s seven-thirty a.m., but the sun already feels like it’s all the way up, and the air is heavy with its heat. Not that Shouyou notices. He’s only been verbal for about thirty minutes, but he’s full of energy anyway—rocking on his heels, twisting and stretching his spine… I’m not watching the dimples on the backs of his knees twitch, or the hem of his shirt tease up.

The others aren't here yet. Warm-ups don’t technically start till eight, but Shouyou wanted to get a jump on things. So we line up in our running lanes, and on my count, kick-off for the halfway point at the other side of the track where we dropped marker cones. 

Short sprints like this are best for training our leg muscles to react quickly for jumps and dives. 

Shouyou is impossible to leave behind, as always, speeding up right next to me. If I let up at all—if I don’t give this everything I have—he’ll overtake me.

I spent my childhood waiting for the perfect rival, and the first time we played—when he was scrawny in his lime-green uniform—I was sure I’d found him. He had all this potential and speed, and hunger. I could feel the ache in my own stomach from just watching him. 

But his technique was raw like he’d never bothered with drills or conditioning. All his potential, wasting away. It felt like a broken promise. 

I was wrong, though. I had no idea...

I steal past the cones first, barely a nose ahead of Shouyou, and win. We’re both panting. I’m buzzing—his energy is contagious—and my heart is racing like whatever bird that is, sputtering a _tut tut tut tut tut_. 

Shouyou yanks the front of his shirt up to wipe a drip of sweat from his eyes and the muscles in his stomach bunch. I want to reach over and feel them tighten under my fingers. Instead, I cover my eyes and fall to the grass on my back. Only, Shouyou lays down next to me and nudges into the crook of my shoulder. 

I elbow him away on reflex. No, that’s a lie. It’s cause I’ve got to stop touching him so much if I’m gonna survive this. 

“Don’t be so stingy,” he whines, pushing my arm back up and getting comfortable.

I let him. I always end up letting him. 

He noses against the small bump in my collar where the bone healed thick after I broke it as a kid, and he's twisting his arm back, trying to scratch a place between his shoulder blades he can't reach—so I do it for him. His nostrils twitch, and he huffs a little sound so good, I’m gnawing at the bit to try pulling it out of him again. 

If I keep going like this, I’m gonna wreck what we have. I can’t drag my hands up under his shirt to grope at his skin. I can’t bury my nose in the top of his hair to inhale. I can’t lay him out on the grass and crawl over him. I shouldn’t even want to. 

This is shaky ground. 

Shouyou is everything I ever wanted—a threat at my heels, a reason to keep improving.

I have to be careful.

❖

Thursday is weights day. You can't bulk without giving muscle groups rest days, so Iwaizumi has us switch between upper and lower body workout days.

I’m spotting Shouyou on the squat rack for a max set—which isn’t strictly necessary considering, well, the rack and everything, but knowing him, he’ll find a way to hurt himself even with an assist. (This isn’t like the thing I was saying before about him not needing babying. Babies don’t lift 105kgs.)

“How many more forced reps are you planning to do?” I ask, casting a look around to where Komori and Hakuba are toweling off their necks, and Iwaizumi is counting out the last set of Bokuto’s goblet squats.

Shouyou is gripping a stacked bar on the backs of his drawn up shoulders as he dips down yet again even though he’s obviously spent.

“Just,” he grinds out, “a few more.” 

If that’s not the biggest lie I’ve ever heard in my life…“Your _few more_ is never a few.”

“Gotta keep you on your t-toes, or you’ll get ahead of me.” He’s smiling, but something's not right about it. I can’t pin exactly what, and maybe I’m wrong cause I’m shit at reading people, but I don’t like anything about the scratch his voice made at the end there.

His gym shorts are so wet with sweat they cling high to the fronts of his thighs, flashing more leg than is decent.

His legs... The legs he’s worked so hard for. That have carried him all the way up to the Olympic level even when everyone told him it wasn't realistic, and not to get his hopes up.

I unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth, and shift my eyes away from him, then right back, cause I have to keep an eye on that bar. He’ll lift all the way to failure if I’m sloppy enough to allow it.

With a groan (I wish he would stop making sounds like that) Shouyou raises the bar again. “If you get ahead, you’ll–” he huffs, “get bored of m–” His heel slides the slightest bit, shifting his center of balance, and he’s falling!

I rip the bar from his grip, heaving it as his ass hits the floor. The plates jangle, metal on metal, and echo through the gym.

“Are you fucking crazy? That could’ve crushed you!” 

He coughs a chuckle through gasping breaths, sinking back all the way to the foam tile mat covering the ground. “Like you weren't gonna catch it.”

I’m hot with fury and ...not fury, cause here it is again, this blind trust he just lays at my feet like it’s nothing even though it feels like so much I can barely contain it. 

I squeeze my eyes shut, open, shut, open– Okay, I’m fine. It’s fine. 

Adjusting the weight of the bar so I can lift it, I try not to look at the way Shouyou’s legs are splayed out obscenely—shorts still sticking to the tops in a bunched mess as he reaches high on the inside of his leg, and turns it open wider to scratch at pale skin. 

Skin I’d smooth my lips down to chart every muscled curve…

_I have to be careful,_ I remind myself. Looking at him like this is against the rules. And if he just lays there, his muscles will lock up, and he won’t be able to move in a few minutes. 

“Stretch, dumbass,” I say as I haul the bar up to my chest and rest it back in place on the rack. Then, almost as an afterthought, I risk just one more glance at him and ask, “You really think I could get bored of you?”

Shouyou shoots me a grin. I hope he means this one. I need for him to mean it, but he doesn’t always. 

In our last year at Karasuno, Shouyou congratulated a touchy first year on a clean serve. They’d messed up every other serve that day—which, even for them, was bad. Shouyou beamed and gushed about how good a job they did all the way until the end of practice. Then when we were alone in the clubroom, his lips fell flat, and his brows pulled together in a change so abrupt my whole body stiffened. 

When I asked him about it, he said, “Sometimes it's better to pretend that everything is alright even if it’s not.” I guess he was trying to cheer the kid up to pull him outta some funk. But I don’t like the idea that Shouyou—who’s supposed to wear his heart on his sleeve—can lie with his smiles. 

Mostly, I don’t like that I can’t tell when he does it.

❖

I’m folding laundry on the floor of my room because this is what I do every Thursday night. (The laundry room is too crowded over the weekend.) But Shouyou is probably here because he hates doing boring things on his own and he ran out of his last pair of clean shorts. Or that better be it, cause all he’s wearing is an oversized hoodie, tall socks, and a pair of boxers. Couldn't tell you what they look like. All I got was blue before my survival instincts decide to kick back in, and I looked the fuck away. Anywhere, just not down.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to fold laundry at the same time as playing _the floor is lava_ (or, in this case, _everything below the waist is lava,_ but like, for my eyes)?

Shouyou is sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he digs through his pile of laundry, mostly towels and gym clothes, and I want to yell at him to shove that thing back in his mouth as his phone buzzes with yet another text. His thumbs speed over the screen, a stupid smile tugging on his lips. “You know,” he says. “Everyone on Twitter is talking about how our team is from the monster generation. How funny is that?”

“Hm, yeah.” I might be a monster, sure. Teammates and small animals run from me. But Shouyou, he's something different. Like a monster tamer. Or butcher.

“Remember this?” He holds up a picture on his phone. 

Of course, I remember. 

In the photo, I'm twenty-two, dressed in all white, and he's in all black. Our teammates are scattered around us, but we're looking at each other. He's grinning ear to ear, and I remember feeling the same grin cutting the edges of my mouth like even after so much time, he could still seep into who I was. I remember thinking I didn't mind it.

I give a small nod, trying to stuff back a rush of feelings I don’t really understand. 

Shouyou's phone vibrates. “Oikawa-San is saying you look like a wild animal here.” He snickers behind his hand. “Your smile _is_ kinda crazy, though.”

“Why do you like that asshole anyway?”

“Hm...” Shouyou gives a shrug. “He reminds me of you.”

I snort. “I’m nothing like him.”

“Well, yeah”—he’s already going back to tapping at his phone, barely listening to me—“but he’s like your family or something.”

The TV is droning from the main room down the hall, where one of our teammates must be watching a show. A shower is running on the other side of my bedroom wall. And the heady smell of curry is sneaking in from the kitchen, mixing with the powder-thick laundry softener. 

I’m not looking at Shouyou, so I don’t duck as he shakes out a jacket, and one of the arms hits me in the face. As I’m batting the thing away, I slip, just for a second, and I see it. A white, rectangular icy hot patch pasted to his thigh. The muscle beneath it is strained and must hurt like a bitch because the top of his thigh is swollen to the knee.

I can’t believe he pushed so hard earlier he actually hurt himself. That patch feels like a personal insult. Like I didn’t do my job, and this is my punishment. I grab Shouyou’s calf so he can’t try to hide the evidence (was his calf always this firm?) and glare at him. 

Shouyou jolts. 

“You’re _injured_ ,” I spit through my teeth. 

“Oh.” He blinks. “Yeah, that… Iwaizumi-San made me wear it.”

I should let him go now. _I have to let him go._ I don’t want to. 

My fingers stray on their own, pressing into the reddish skin right over his knee. It’s over warm, probably from inflammation.

He sighs, relaxing back against the wall—and oh god—turns the inside of his thigh just like in the gym yesterday, but this time it’s into my touch. “That feels good, Tobio, don’t stop.” 

The skin between his legs is even softer than I thought, rubbed smooth, paler than anywhere else I can see—which isn’t a helpful thought because now I want to see the rest to compare. I want to know every piece of him. And I'm not alone enough for that kind of thinking.

I work circles into his knotted muscles, and he groans. I swear, I can’t take any more of this. I’m already crossing my own lines. I’m not supposed to touch him this way. 

But… is it against the rules if he asks for it? If a massage is for his own good? 

Yes, fuck, yes, it’s still against the rules. What am I doing?

I cling to the shred of self-control I still have and do my best to level my voice. “Haven't you learned anything in all this time?”

“I know,” he practically whines. Such a fucking brat.

“If you keep overworking yourself, you’re gonna get sick like at nationals in first year.”

He rubs the heels of his palms against his forehead. “I've been better about that stuff, but it's hard not to get swept up in it now,” he says with a weak smile. “I mean, this is the Olympics!”

His excitement lights a flare in my belly. The lines between us are smearing again. “You better cut it out, though, or I'll get to stay on the court longer.” Then just to rub it in, I add, “Again,” because I need him to take this challenge and stop messing around.

Shouyou straightens, and this look, I know. This is the butcher who stares down his enemies across the net. Who took on every boss in high school at my side. Who will do anything if it means victory.

“No way!” he says.

Nevermind what I said before about how wanting to kiss Shouyou is the worst thing I’ve ever admitted to myself. (Honestly, that’s not even all I want… I want too much.) The real worst thing is that—no matter what—I can't tell him. I can’t risk losing this.

❖

When I'm alone at night, twisted under my covers, I replay Shouyou’s voice grazing over my name—how his lips rounded out, and the uptick of his tongue on the T… "Tobio."

There’s more, too. His breathy, “That feels good, Tobio, don’t stop.” The memory of his skin, warm, smooth, turning into me—eager for me. 

My hand is moving inside my sweatpants. Want burns heavy as a hot coal in my stomach. In my mind, I’m back with Shouyou on the floor with our laundry. He’s groaning, and his hand cups the top of mine over his thigh, dragging my fingers up, up, up to the softest part of his leg, the tender stretch of skin right at the bend. Heat laps along my spine. He lets me thumb the dip under the muscle there. He lets me touch anywhere I want because he wants it too. Palming my hand, he brings my fingers around him, takes what he wants from me.

Chills rise over my arms, as he demands more, the weight in my belly pulls tight, tighter, then I am every bit out of control. 

Somehow, it's like this is more real than it's ever been, like I don't have a blanket covering me, and the door isn’t locked. Like someone's going to walk in at any moment and know everything.

❖

We’re so close to leaving for the Olympic Village, I can already taste the fresh paint in Ariake Arena. I’ve got a duffle half packed in my bedroom already.

Today, the press is here to watch us play. They need footage to roll on the news—a couple of interviews and snapshots of us with the ball. The usually empty seats in the gym are full. Cameras outline the court with their flashing lenses and too-loud newscasters. 

I hate all the noise and hassle, but this is how it goes leading up to big games. And today is hardly my first match in front of cameras. Like I said before, I’ve played in the Olympics once already. And all of my V-League matches were aired live. I’ve stood in ten thousand person stadiums packed to the roof, had hordes of kids crowd me after wins. I’ve handled this before.

Bokuto is beaming like someone just turned on the lights inside his face. Shouyou is trailing behind him, just as bad, but harder to look at.

At least Ushijima is the same. He’s reliable that way. Unlike Miya, who pulls a fast one the second you take your eyes off of him. Like now, he’s got Shouyou tucked against his side as he chit-chats with a camerawoman.

When we take our positions on the court, Shouyou leans over to me. “Tobio, what’s wrong?”

I push back my shoulders. “It’s nothing.” For now, he’s on my side, Miya can’t have him.

Miya gets the first serve, though. 

Shouyou’s heels lick the floor like flames catching, and he's already in the air as I toss him the ball. We're perfectly synched as always. 

Afterward, he grips my arm. Half his face is teeth, slit in a huge grin, and I want to catch him and pull him in for a kiss. If all these people weren't here, I might even slip up. But what then?

What do I even expect? He'd jerk back in horror, maybe slug me. That would be okay. I'd deserve it. But what if it ruined our trust? What if our plays stopped matching up, and all we did from then on was lose? All because I had to go and start feeling confusing things I never should have.

❖

When we break for our second game, a reporter steps out in front of me, bowing. “Kageyama-San, could I ask you a few questions?” 

That’s how I end up with four mikes thrown in my face, staring down the eye of a camera. At first, it’s alright. I have a routine for this too—try to smile even if people say it’s scary (Shouyou says a scary smile is better than no smile), answer only what I have to, what is being specifically asked of me. Give nothing else, and I’ll get away without losing any chunks of myself.

Then, the reporter, Miss Ena-something, flashes her phone at me. It’s a photo of Shouyou, splayed out, asleep on Miya’s back as he carries him down some street at night. Miya is flaunting a peace sign at whoever took the picture.

All I’m thinking is what was that bastard doing with him in the middle of the night and _how dare he._

“Could you comment on the rumors around the popular Ninja Shouyou and the national team's second setter, Miya Atsumu? These two have been spotted together quite a bit.”

I'm not used to getting scandal article type questions for sleazy readers to feed on.

I clench my teeth. “No.”

She falters. “Well, can you confirm the nature of your history with Ninja Shouyou?” She swipes over her screen and shoots another picture at me. This one is Shouyou and me. We’re sixteen in our Karasuno uniforms. His legs are clamped around my middle, tearing at my hair, roaring. Our foreheads are mashed together. I’m smiling. 

I remember the blinding high of that moment. We’d just won, impossibly, against Shiratorizawa. It felt like we were one person. His limbs were an extension of mine, one body, one goal. We look like it, too, wrapped up in each other. 

_What’s the nature of our relationship?_

“He’s my... rival,” I hesitate. It's still as incomplete of an answer as when I told Yaku weeks ago. I hope it’s enough to stop the questions.

I don’t think it is, though. The reporter opens her mouth, so I retreat before she can finish whatever she was going to ask, shouldering my way out of the crowded sidelines back onto the court. It’s a little better, less packed at least, but all the eyes in the gym can reach me here.

Peeping. Prying. Judging. 

How the fuck do I to talk about Shouyou safely? What kinds of things are okay, and what’s too much? What if I said something wrong, and then everyone knew something was wrong with _me?_

Coach Hibarida calls for the start of our second game. 

I’m so thirsty. With the reporter hounding me, I didn’t get a chance to suck down any water. The onlookers are getting riled up again, which shouldn’t bother me. I’ve dealt with way worse, but right now, I feel probed. Like my corners have been peeled back, and I’m afraid what all these people will see.

Miya welcomes Shouyou onto his side with a handshake, pulling him in too close while he shoots a smirk at me. 

I want to claw that smug expression right from his mouth, break the rest of him on my fists bone by bone, and lay his mangled body at Shouyou’s feet. “Look what I brought you,” I’d say. “Who gives you the best sets now?”

Shouyou’s not paying attention to Miya, so he doesn’t see anything. All he cares about is the steak dangled right in front of him—another game. 

My head is hot. I palm my forehead and try to breathe out the throb in my chest. 

There’s no time to feel like this. I line up for the starting serve. A hush runs through the gym as everyone waits. Even the air smells different in here today. There’s a metallic bite from all the technology. I close my eyes, exhale. Then I let my muscle memory carry me through the rest. My body knows what to do.

I hit the ball, thank fuck, and it blares over the net. Shouyou is there, totally focused, body rolling through a flawless receive. All eleven players pull at my senses. I hear everything. I see everything. The court is, as always, a map in my mind. Usually, it works to my advantage… But sometimes—when I can’t find calm... when I’m rattled badly enough—it’s too much.

Shouyou sets the ball to Miya, and before any of us can get close enough, he dumps it. When Shouyou high fives him, Miya looks back at me over his shoulder, firing a peace sign my way… just like in that picture.

My hands shake to ball into fists. The lights are too bright. A pack of people in red jackets are laughing. At Miya? At me? Someone by the exit is sending a shrill whistle, and I’m trying not to think about why.

It’s the other team’s serve now, and we're down twenty-two to twenty-three. If they score one more time, they’ll be at match point.

Miya’s serve is one of those sleazy floaters. Yaku dives in for a rough receive. And just as I’m getting under the ball to toss it to Sakusa, Miya croons at me from behind the net, “It’s looking like Shou-kun, and I make a better team, don’t-cha think?”

The words stab like fangs in all my raw edges. _No_ , I think, _You can’t have him!_ He’s my partner, my rival, my—I’m growling, and I don’t know when I made the decision, but I’m aiming and driving the ball right into Miya’s face.

It punches into his forehead and explodes off with the kickback of a pulled trigger _,_ slamming him to the floor. 

Yes, fuck, you piece of shit. That’s where you belong. I’m heaving.

A buzz runs through the crowd.

Ah– Shit, wait– I shouldn’t have done that. 

Nausea rocks in my stomach. 

Why did I?

What’s wrong with me?

“Kageyama!” Hibarida snaps from the sidelines.

❖

I’m racing to the locker room, staggering from Hibarida’s threat. 

“What’s going on with you?” he demanded. “You’re unfocused, acting out. If you keep this up, I’ll have no choice but to demote you to second string.”

 _Second best._ Under Miya. Under Oikawa even, cause I won’t get to start in the match against Argentina.

Hibarida scouted me in my first year of high school, watched over me for seven years after, and this is how I repay him. 

I need to get away from all the eyes on me. My senses are shrieking like I’m inflamed from my eardrums to the pores in my nostrils. This has happened before. I need to find someplace quiet and dark, where I can shut off and breathe this out.

“What the hell, Kageyama?”

I punch a locker, hunching over it as Shouyou rounds on me. The cold metal bites at my burning forehead. “So, now, I’m Kageyama again?”

Shouyou scrubs a hand over his face. “Just... No– You can't act like that! There were cameras and people, and– You can’t!”

I’m pulling on the ends of my hair, digging my fingers into the backs of my eyelids, sinking to the floor. Every single sound in my ears is clawing at me—the stampede of footsteps outside the door, the cold air rasping through the vents above us, Shouyou’s fingernail scratching at the bleeding cuticle on his thumb, _skritch-skritch-skritch._ It’s like a thousand knives are stabbing into me, each demanding my entire focus as they carve me away bit by bit.

This is why I need my routine—structure, rules. _This is what you can do. This is what you can say. This is what you can feel._ Without that solid ground, the world turns out of control.

Shouyou follows me to the ground, shoving my shoulder back against the locker with one hand and gripping my jersey with the other, scanning my face like I'm a freak.

"What's going on in your head right now?"

I cover my eyes with the back of my hand. I don't want him to see me like this. To read me. I say nothing.

“Tobio, I don't get it.” I feel some of the tension in him slip away where he’s gripping me. “I'm here, okay… you can tell me.”

He's here. Tears prick at the corners of my eyes.

It's so easy for him to share himself. To weave through all the social situations and guess other people’s feelings right. 

“Tell me!” he shouts, already getting frustrated.

“Shut up!” He’s so goddamn loud, I can’t– “It’s your fault!” No, no, no, I shouldn’t have said that. 

“What?” His fist tightens in my jersey. “How dare you! I did it. I made it here just like I promised you.” 

Fuck, he did. He did. I know he did. That’s not how I meant it.

“You're my setter, and I finally caught up. After everything and now _you’re_ the one screwing it up. What was that out there?” He whips his free hand at the door, gesturing wildly.

But it's hard to think past him calling me his setter. His.

Have I ever wanted to be anything as much as I want to be that?

I blink back the burn in my eyes. Why did I think I could hide this? 

If Shouyou knew, he would never call me that. What’s the point in pretending when everything between us isn’t even real? 

I feel raw and numb all at once. “You wanna know what’s wrong?” I ask, voice flat. 

“Obviously!” He pushes himself up in my face. 

Our knees are crammed together on the floor, and we’re so close. I can taste the tang of Shouyou’s lemon electrolyte water on his breath. All I have to do is reach forward a little…

He goes stock-still as I lean then lean some more, fitting our noses together, slotting my mouth against his—skimming it, light and dry, and then it’s over.

I can’t bring myself to steal any more from Shouyou because he hasn’t let out a breath since our lips touched. Still hasn’t. He’s gonna fucking die, and it will all be my fault.

I shake him hard by the shoulders. “Breathe!”

Every part of Shouyou’s face is strained and still for a long moment—nose creased, eyes big and wide, brows drawn up, and cheeks full of hot air he was probably going to spit at me in curses. Then it all comes loose, with a gasp and wobble of his mouth. His eyes fill with tears. Even his nose is running. It’s exactly how he looked after we lost to Itachiyama in third year. Is that what he’s feeling—loss? 

The loss of our friendship probably, cause I just ruined everything.

“You kissed me,” he rasps, hand falling limp at my shoulder, eyes darting over my face.

I did. Shit. I lick my lips. “Do you get it? You can hate me now.”

Shouyou’s mouth falls open in a gape that would look a lot more stupid if he wasn’t glaring so hard. Then he’s on me, pushing my head back against the lockers, and I’m bracing for a blow when I get his mouth instead—hard against mine, kissing me all on his own.

My pulse is a war drum in my chest as he scrambles into my lap, never letting my mouth go. His tongue scrapes against my lower lip. His teeth bite into me. I clutch him by the jaw, as he carves me open. I shouldn't like how much my lip stings with his teeth marks, but I do. I have no idea what I'm doing. It’s gotta be obvious how terrible I am at this, how little I know, and maybe he'll laugh at me, but I still want him.

Shouyou’s straddling me between his knees, and the best I can do is hold on to his tightening thighs as everything tips madly beneath me when he pushes even closer, pressing our middles together till we’re touching all the way down. He groans against my mouth, and I think it’s the best sound I’ve ever heard because it means I'm not alone in this.

For a moment, the terrified clench in my stomach unfurls the tiniest bit, like maybe it will be alright to let him flay me bare.

I’m panting as Shouyou breaks away. With him in my lap like this, I have to look up at him for once. His eyelids are drooping. I’ve never seen his lashes so close. They’re such a pale orange they’re almost blonde. I want to look forever, but he slumps down into me and hides his face under my chin.

We sit like that for a long moment, until he breaks the silence and says, “I thought you were ace.”

A laugh is rising in my chest. I might even let it out. “The hell are you talking about, dumbass.” I ruffle his hair. “Please tell me you know I'm a setter.”

“N-no, hey!” He straightens up and swats my cheek, rubbing his arm over the damp mess of his face. “It means asexual, stupid. Like you’re just not into anyone like that.” He swallows. “Or, at least, I-um, didn't think you were into guys.”

Oh. _Oh._ “I didn't either.” But that's a lie. I don't lie much—too confusing—but I think this is one I've been telling myself so long it comes automatically. I like to look at girls. It's just never been only girls.

“It's okay if you don't know. For some people, only _who_ they like matters. Gay, bi, straight isn't important."

I flinch and bow my head. Gay. _Bi._ How can he say all that so easily? He's still going, rambling.

"Or they could be aromantic, so they’re only into physical stuff.” He chews his lip, glancing down at where our laps are touching. “Whatever it is, it's fine," he says softly. 

“What, uh–” I clear my throat. “What are you into?”

“Oh!” His eyes widen. “I like guys. Always have.” 

How did I never know that?

Shouyou shifts in my lap, so I smooth my hands up from the glossy fabric of his gym shorts to hold him at the waist. My left leg is going numb, but I refuse to let go. Just a little longer.

“I was still in the closet in high school,” he says in a hushed voice. “It was… hard. I didn't know it was okay to feel the way I did until I went away.”

I need to know everything, to hear someone else finally talk about these things. I don’t know how to ask for him to keep going, but he does.

“Things are different in Brazil. Everyone doesn't have to _like_ in the same way. No one has to be a boy or girl even if it doesn't feel right.” He smiles. “And I met lots of other people like me.”

There were others. I think that’s the part he’s not saying. That he’s been with other people. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Shouyou gives affection as easily as breathing. I bet he could tell how much I needed that from him. If it had been anyone else, I can’t imagine in a million years he’d turn them down. I shouldn’t have let myself hope that it was more than that.

“Hey.” Shouyou is leaning in, budding his forehead up against mine. 

The skin of my cheeks is tight with restraint. I don’t know what kind of face I’m making.

“Everything is okay,” he whispers and brushes our lips together again.

I nod.

It’s not, but as long as he’ll let me kiss him, I’ll take what I can get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The aspergers rep in this fic is based on many hours of conversation with the person in my life who has aspergers (who has read and approved this story) along with the research I've done (several books/articles/podcasts). If you're a person with aspergers or a neurodiverse person and you don't see your own experience in this story, I'm sorry. It should go without saying, but every ND person is different, and this story is based on the experience of mainly one person. I hope you can find yourself inside another story soon.
> 
> If you enjoyed this chapter, you can like or share the link on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lezblowshitup/status/1314934079125516290)
> 
> Here are all my [links](https://lezblowshtup.carrd.co/) :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hooking up... and the fallout

My palms itch under the table as we eat dinner. I clench my hands over my knees and release them, trying to get a hold of myself. The ridge of my pinkie just barely skates Shouyou’s crossed leg, and then his hand cups mine, holding it there.

I swallow the rice in my mouth carefully as he interlocks our fingers.

When we settle onto the couch for not-movie-movie-night, Shouyou steals the end of my blanket and wriggles next to me, drawing it up to his chin. He’s so warm and close, and I think maybe it’s okay to touch. Underneath the blanket, I slide my palm along the thickness of his thigh and squeeze. He doesn't stop me. 

I can’t tell by his straight face—eyes annoyingly gripped to Oikawa on the TV, serving—if he likes my hand against him, likes when someone touches him, or if he’s just putting up with it. That thought swirls sickly in my stomach.

By the time Bokuto has clicked through the fourth Argentinian Volleyball Federation recording, Shouyou is asleep, drooling on my shoulder and snoring. I have to nudge him awake and drag him up off the couch. 

He grumbles, nearly trips over Hoshiumi on the floor, rubs his eye with a knuckle, and wipes at his mouth as we make our slow way down the hall to our rooms. 

I’m holding him up with the arm he’s got propped across my shoulders, and he’s shamelessly leaning his entire body weight against me. I should drop him here and teach him a lesson. Only, then I’d have to let go of him. You’d have to pry him away from me limb by limb before I'd do that. So I carry him the rest of the way to his room and lean him against the frame of his door.

Shouyou’s face is soft and bleary, with wrinkles crisscrossing his cheek from where he was smooshed against my sleeve on the couch. His mouth is so pink (sleep-warmed), shiny in the crook where he missed a smudge of drool. We’re still in the hall, but we’re around a corner from the public space. If I kiss him quickly, I don’t think anyone will see. Am I allowed to now? 

I bump my nose against the tip of his, but no further.

Coach Ukai once told me I couldn’t read people’s minds, so I shouldn’t expect to know anything without asking. He was right, and I’ll gnaw apart my lip from biting back what I want before I push Shouyou to give me anything more that  _ he _ doesn’t want to—so I wait.

Seems like I've always been waiting for Shouyou. Waiting to find him when I was a kid. Waiting for him to get good enough, smooth out all his rough edges. Waiting for him to come home. Waiting for a chance like this.

He’s never disappointed me before.

Shouyou gives a hum that vibrates between us, and then there is no more between. Only a crushing together.

Kissing is so much like tossing him that first quick when I was sure he wouldn't hit it… until he did. 

His mouth is a shock of contact. And just like after that first ball, he won't let me go, holding me down by the hair on the back of my neck, hounding me for every centimeter I’ll let him, pushing to kiss him better—like every time he’s pushed me to give more, practice longer, harder.

I think all the little comments I’ve heard from Bokuto and Iwaizumi of how much he grew up in Brazil meant more than I ever considered. I think he’s done this before. I think touching, kissing, wanting are natural for him. That he’s not saying, he wants only me, will do anything for me, the way my lips are spelling those promises out against him. 

But, now that I've had just a little of the open, wet greed of Shouyou’s mouth, it's impossible to stop. 

His hand is grazing up under my shirt, along my ribs, and mine is clutching at his jaw, his neck, down to the V of his throat, falling slack on the thrill of his pulse. 

He’s tearing at all my unstuck corners, peeling up, and I don’t know what raw thing he’s gonna find underneath. And I have to stop because I can’t breathe.

I’m gasping into the curve of Shouyou’s jaw, blinking through the daze in my head. “Why are you doing all this?” I ask.  _ Why are you letting me do all this? _

“What do ya mean? It’s you.” 

I have no idea what he’s saying.

He nudges me back with his chin.

_ I can’t expect to know what I don’t ask. _ “What do you want from this?” 

“I...” Shouyou’s tongue edges from the corner of his mouth with a flash like the shine on a butcher’s blade.

I lean in further. I need it against me, cutting.

He scrapes his teeth over his bottom lip, and I stare at the sheen it leaves. “What about you, Tobio? What do you want?”

I’m no mind reader. The only thing I can do is tell the truth. I close my eyes. It takes all the grit I can work up to say, “You.”

His breath hitches and his hand claws where it’s pressed at the center of my ribs.

I lean into it.

“Come with me somewhere after practice tomorrow.”

As if I’d say,  _ no _ .

I’ll go where he goes. Even if it means something different to him.

❖

Towering above me are floors and floors of a hotel, strung top to bottom with lipstick pink neon, and backlit by the sunset like a glowing tombstone.

“This is a love hotel,” I say with a rising spike of panic and desperate excitement. When did he decide he wanted to do  _ this?  _

“It's perfect.” Shouyou grins. “Everyone will hear us at the training center.”

I'm cycling through that over and over as he pulls me by the wrist into the building. Why would they hear us? How loud is he planning on being?

The receptionist's eyes widen at the two of us, and I don't know what silent judgment she's making, but Shouyou doesn’t miss a beat, marches right up to her, smiling broadly. 

A car is screeching out on the street, and I can’t stop glancing back at the door, worried that someone else will walk in and see us—two guys, here—and they’ll  _ know.  _

Then Shouyou’s tugging on my wrist again, holding a gold key up to his cheek like a prize even though the plastic block it’s hung from is scratched and dulled closer to yellow than clear. The number nineteen is painted on it. 

“See,  _ totally _ perfect, it’s nine plus ten,” he says as I follow him into an elevator so narrow, I have to tuck my elbows in to keep them from knocking the walls.

Literally nothing about this place is perfect except for him. I want to kiss every chubby bit of his cheeks even though one of the light bulbs on the elevator ceiling is ticking, and the air is choked with cigarette smoke.

He really wants to do this with me? 

The door to room nineteen sticks in the jam. I shove at the knob, and the door makes a peeling untacking sound as its glossy paint rubs against the frame before popping open.

Shouyou bounces in, flinging his team jacket on a chair. The carpet is plasticky under our sneakers. I flinch at each crinkle as my feet fall and try to step lighter—to exist less—and not to stare as Shouyou yanks his shirt up his chest and dumps it on the chair with the jacket.

He’s on me in seconds, hooking his arms around my neck, craning up to kiss. I grab on to his waist to keep from tipping over. It’s a miracle I don’t with the way Shouyou is clawing at my clothes. My chest is bare. His slides against me, shivery warm, skin to skin. My shirt is hanging in the crook of my shoulder, and neither of us can be bothered to get it the rest of the way off.

As we stumble to the bed, my heart won’t shut up. The comforter is made of something pilled and red that smells of mildew and someone else’s musk. The sheets are thin in their center, I think, from use. I'm afraid to lay all the way back because I don't want my skin to touch them.

Shouyou is in my lap, scrambling up my body as fast as ever. I've never been so okay being pinned as I am pinned under his thighs. We kiss long and deep as I try not to think about the faint smell of bleach and sewer from the bathroom. 

It's not the filth. Sure, I'm a clean person, but I’m not obsessive about it like Sakusa or something. It's that everything blares of other people. Like we're out in the middle of the street for any gawker to spy on. For anyone to get what we have wrong, cause they’ve got no clue.

Shouyou’s hips press against me.  I grope over his thighs. Their muscles clench at my touch. Twitching. He widens his legs. Rolling our hips. I never want him to stop. I’m dragging him down against me, rolling back.

There's a shuffling in the hall, some other people, other rooms—we're surrounded. And I'm so close with Shouyou riding against me. 

It’s-it’s too much.  My heart is racing .  I'm panting, gasping for breath. 

"Tobio?"

No. No. Not out in the open like this.

"Tobio!" Shouyou is grabbing the sides of my head, hunching over my lap.  “Shh, shh, it's okay. It's okay."

His voice is a raft I'm clinging to.

"Tobio, what's wrong?"

I press my cheek into his palm. "I–" Words feel too big to fit my tongue around their letters. "I. Hate. This. Place."

Shouyou looks around as if he didn't even notice how nasty the room is. Then back at me, eyes tracing my face, collecting all his clues. "Yeah, okay." He nods. "We'll leave. You're right. This was a bad idea."

❖

I still feel disgusting once we've made it back to the training center. Shouyou clicks my bedroom door shut behind him and catches my wrist. "Hey, you know we don't have to do anything, right?"

“I know.” My legs feel wobbly. I want so much to touch him, have him, be with him; it's not fair. How can he not see that? 

Shouyou presses his bottom lip up. "What do you need?"

I stare down at the duffle bag I’ve packed by the door. Tomorrow we’re leaving for the Olympic Village. We’ve gotta move into their volleyball dorms before the opening ceremony at the end of the week. Everything is about to pick up even faster, and I don’t want to lose this chance in the rush.

"C-can we just shower and start over?"

“You want me to shower in my room and come back, or…” He tilts his head to my bathroom.

My neck burns. I can't do that yet. 

"Hey, no–it's fine.” Shouyou bunches his hand in my shirt. “I’ll go. Just give me a bit.”

I inhale—so grateful for him.

❖

My hands shake as I wash myself, scratching at my body everywhere my bare skin touched that room. I’m a frazzled mix of nerves and  _ need _ cut short.

Is Shouyou gonna know that I've never done this, that I'm too old for all these first? Will he decide that means something about me?

When I get out of the shower, I slip a clean pair of boxers on, and there’s a knock at my door.

Shouyou is standing in the hall in a tourist t-shirt big enough that only the green checkered hem of his boxers poke out from the bottom. His hair is dripping puddles into the hollows of his collar bone.

“You’re gonna catch a cold.” I unwrap the towel from my neck and scrub his head as he  catches his breath. The idiot must have rushed—which, for some reason, makes me annoyingly happy.

He huffs out through his nose as I towel down his bangs, and it tickles all the little hairs on my face. I'm still touchy all over. It's okay, though. Now that we’re here, it’s easier to focus on Shouyou. The person I know better than anyone else in the world. And I get more of him now.

My tongue is fat in my mouth as I say, “I've never done this.”

“Oh…" He tilts his head under my hand, still drying his hair. "Never?”

There were girls who wanted to be with me. Ones who waited for me outside the Adlers' gym on practice days and pet my arms as they pressed in close. I’ve had my share of invitations to noodle places, and even a direct  _ "Come back to my apartment" _ from a small girl with a soft face and sweet nose. (I don’t know why I didn’t accept. I thought about her after, alone at night. I wanted her. But I didn’t  _ know _ her.)

“No,” I say. “Never.”

Shouyou lays his palm over my bare stomach. “And you want to? With me?”

I give a firm nod.

“Good then.” He smiles so easily...

I can’t help but wonder if that’s it. No digs? No shame?

Shouyou trots over to my bed and plops down—right on the blankets (right where I’ve kept the piece of me that wants him, that could never  _ admit _ I wanted him)—then, at some expression on my face, he shoots back up, shoulders tight. "Is it okay for me to sit on your bed?"

"Course it's okay," I snap. I don't want him treating me like glass cause I freaked out at the hotel. I take three steps toward him, pushing him back against my pillows. But he doesn't go down that easy. He wrestles an arm around my elbow and drags me with him, craning his neck... And we’re kissing again.

We're so much less alone here than we were at the love hotel. Here we're not anonymous. But this is my room. My sheets. My things. It feels private even though the walls are thin, and our eleven teammates have rooms in the same hall. 

Shouyou is filling everything with the smell of his coconut conditioner. His chapped lips scrape mine.

I pin his grabby hands at the top of the pillows and snag the stick of balm I keep on my nightstand, uncapping it. His eyebrows lift, and his mouth pulls into a sharp grin, moving way too much for me to do this—so I pinch his cheeks together with my free hand and say, "Hold still," as I rub it over his lips.

When I finish, he nuzzles into my chin. 

“You’re always taking care of me.” He lays a peck on my cheek, murmuring into my skin. “I like it. Makes me feel…”

I would give anything to  hear the end of those words. “What?” I whisper, butting our foreheads together.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head, saying, “C’mere,” wrapping his ankles around my waist and pulling me in as he lays all the way back against the pillows. He doesn't resist my hold on his wrists—and like I've said, Shouyou is impossible to pin if he wants to be free—so… so I don't let him go. Like this, he’s all mine.

With the shaky hand that's free, I gather the end of his shirt and slide it up his body. He nips the end from me in his teeth like some impression of an animal accepting his bit. Then he stretches his neck back—a goddamned, out-in-out offer. 

Shouyou’s chest is a shade lighter than his neck and arms, flushed pink at the center, and sticky warm to my touch where he hasn’t dried all the way yet. I’m folding over him, mapping my way across his skin, dipping my thumb into his belly button. I can't stop looking—memorizing the way his stomach shudders as he pulls in air, the way his thighs flinch apart just a little wider.

_His thighs._ I want to lay him out and nose their peach fuzzed insides, run my tongue over their shading tan lines. I think I might be allowed. 

I chance down with a knot in my throat, bend his leg up to his ribs, and press my lips to the back of his knee right over the dimple.

Shouyou’s eyes lid  as I  mouth my way in, along the softest part of his thigh, nibbling the sensitive skin between my lips. I have to stretch to pin his wrists and still reach, but I'm not ready to give up having him under my thumb.

Has someone touched him here? Have they slid their hand along the muscles on the back of his leg or teased the hiked edge of his boxers like this? 

Every spiker hits a little different, needs a different set. Won’t this be the same? 

“What do you like?” I ask, kissing a path further down his leg.  If I touch him better than any of the others he’s been with, maybe… If he needs me to feel good, maybe he won’t go to anyone else. 

“This,” Shouyou muffles around the t-shirt in his teeth, spreading his legs further. He’s opening under me like he’s every bit in his element. Like he’s used to feeling good because his body was made to be touched.

I groan, sinking further down the blanket, following the line of his leg with my mouth, and trying to keep my grip on his wrist. Shouyou’s not having it anymore. He yanks free and pulls at my hair. I close my eyes to the sensation and stifle back a  _ please please _ crawling up my throat as he bows up against me. 

His breath sucks in, damp through his shirt. "Higher."

So I push his boxers higher and tongue the hollow at the join of his leg just the way I've wanted to for so much longer than I've ever admitted to myself.

I can feel him against my cheek, straining in his boxers. “What else?”  _ Please _ , I need to know.

Shouyou moans and spits his shirt onto his flushed chest, saying, “You never go easy on me,” as he drags me by my chin up his body and slips our lips together—not a kiss. Just a lip-balmy slide. Just sucking in each other’s air. “I’m not gonna go easy on you either, you know?”

I shiver because I do know. 

“Touch me here,” he says, pawing my hand to his cheek, drawing it down his throat as he draws his own hand down the thickened bone in my collar—a rush of doubled everything. Him, feeling along my goose-bumped chest. Me, feeling his stuttery pulse, senses blurring.

Shouyou  clips our noses together.  “I could tell you’ve been watching me,” he says against my mouth.

I stiffen over him, on my knees.

“Mhm.” He presses up into my hand and urges me on. “I wasn’t sure why– I tried–” his voice breaks as I skim his nipple. 

I’m not prepared for the teasing circle he winds around mine in retaliation.

“I tried t-testing you.”

I’m lightheaded, and his hand creeps lower.

It was all on purpose. Shouyou's clinging… Flashing his stomach—flashing so much leg… Of course, it was. I’ve got to be the biggest idiot alive.

Shouyou is everywhere, the smell of him, the heaviness of his breath on the back of my tongue, his humid skin under the pads of my fingers, hot against my palm. It’s not enough. 

I follow—hand shaking—his reach down my chest, down my stomach. There’s this gagging anticipation I haven't felt since riding a roller coaster he yanked me onto the summer of our second year, but a trillion times worse. Even then, I was sure I was gonna die as we  _ crept, crept, crept _ to the tipping point...

My fingertips bump the frayed band of Shouyou's green boxers, tingling from the fuzz I can already feel as he slides his hand down to me—hungry fingers, like in every  fantasy I never put words to— daring me to take him. To ride up that last stretch of track and maybe drop to my death.

I do.

Kami help me. 

I choose death. His hand kisses me, curls around me, unravels me. Death is a fair trade for this.

I find Shouyou—hard in his boxers—and he arches  against me,  biting into my lip  like I've starved him, and he's getting back at me by feeding on my mouth. He’s gonna steal my breath right outta me. Fuck, who needs breath? I’ll live on his instead. I’ll feed him any piece of me he wants and lick his mouth clean after.

Shit, he's not touching me right—it’s not tight enough or rough enough—but he’s grinding sounds between clenched teeth, spilling a thin drip that rubs him tacky in my hand, and the backs of my eyelids burn, and all I can think is _please,_ _don’t let this end_.

Shouyou fists my hair. Damp orange strands stick in wild curls to the tips of his ears and pink forehead. They're a bright flare crushed in my pillows. Every broken sound from his lips shakes through me, jerks the pull in my stomach tighter.

"You're so”—I pant—“fucking loud.” 

"I know, I know, I  _ told _ you!"

He kicks his heels against my back, and I’m torn between smothering him or making him shout louder– Shit, I just want his hand on me tighter. 

“Tobi-Tobio!” He’s squeezing my hips between his thighs, clawing at my back with dull nails. I never should’ve cut them. 

I’m so close– He’s too much– Everyone in the building is gonna hear him **–** I can’t, I can’t… I smash my hand against his kiss-bruised lips (I did that, holy fuck), and his mouth opens under me,  wetting the tips of my two middle fingers, prickling their nerves, hitching the pull inside me. 

I can't stop the moan that rushes up my throat as he skims the pads of my fingers with his burning tongue.

My mouth falls slack. 

I’m the tip of a match licking the surface of the sun—burning hot and bright and going out—in the only race I really  _ really _ didn't want to win.

Shouyou lets out a strangled sound, yanking me by the neck, tightening his legs around my waist, and then I'm blinking through my buzzing haze as the world turns. 

He's flipped me, pinned me between his knees again, smearing the cooling mess on my belly, and dragging my hand back to him. 

Now that I've finished, it's like my ears are clearing. Like the pressure is falling away, leaving a chill against the sweat at my hairline. It’s just me in my training room bed, thin walls, with Shouyou writhing above me. My hands ache to flip him back under me. To touch him at my mercy.

But this is all I get. There are no guarantees there’s ever gonna be more. I’ve got to have all I can of him now. 

“What do you like,” I remember to ask as I close my hand on him and  pull him closer with a grip at the base of his spine. 

Shouyou stares down through heavy eyelids at me, the blades of his hip bones tilting into my touch. “Faster.”

Of course, he does. Always faster and faster.

Through a swollen throat and swelling sureness in my chest, I touch him just like he says.  My wrist aches. The tendon in my forearm is straining. But I won't stop.

I can see almost all of him, except for  where his shirt is wedged under his chin, and what his boxers crammed down at the tops of his thighs hide.  I  slide my hand to the curve of his full ass and squeeze the muscle. So firm. He fits so perfectly in my hand. I could shove his boxers the rest of the way down—but I'm afraid, if I see anymore, it’ll break me. 

Shouyou steals my hand from his ass and  guides me up by the wrist. His mouth slants open, so sharp at the edges. 

I thumb the ridge of his lower teeth, a nd he nips at the beds of my nails.

With his eyes holding mine, he presses the pads of my fingers down his tongue to the back of his throat. 

This fucking punk.

I should’ve known this would be like everything else between us.  I should've known how demanding he'd be. How unbelievable that would feel. How I wouldn’t be able to back down…

I grasp him faster and press my fingers back further. 

Shouyou’s eyes slide shut, and I feel his choking groan in a shudder that tears through me too. 

His thighs flex from his knees to his hips. His stomach sucks in. His biceps twitch.

Then he’s painting the mess on my stomach wet again, collapsing down against me, and  smiling so wide with that spit-slick mouth that his nose crinkles. A hundred times more perfect than anything I could've fantasized.

I've crossed almost every line we had left, broken all my rules...

❖

Morning is a scramble of activity. 

I wake Shouyou, same as always, but between throwing on clothes and stuffing the last couple of things I couldn’t pack like my toothbrush into my duffle—I barely get a second with him as he races around, tongue hanging out (put your fucking tongue away), looking for a video game he’s got to have but can’t find, and hauls three bursting bags out the training center, until we’ve loaded into the van to ride the hour trip to the Olympic Village. 

Here we go. Finally.

My knee is jumping. Shouyou’s rambling about the game he found, how he promised to bring it along so Kuroo—who’s definitely gonna be there now that he’s a sports promoter—can pass it on to Kenma cause Kenma wants his save data or something.

“What the…” Miya’s voice breaks through Shouyou’s chatter in the van.

I glance back at him. He’s across the aisle, one row behind, sneering at his phone. “So, Shou-kun,” he drawls. “You two had a good time last night?”

My palms are sweating. All I can hear is the groan of the van’s engine and something broken in it that’s going  _ tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.  _

“Hey, hey, what’s the deal?” Bokuto asks, craning to gawk at the picture Miya’s holding up on his phone—me and Shouyou, our red national team jackets, the love hotel…

“Why were you two in your team colors in a place like that?” Ushijima asks, sipping calmly at something in a travel mug.

Hibarida is turning back to investigate from where he was leaned over, talking to the driver.

I can’t breathe. I should be controlling my face, but I can’t remember how.

Shouyou groans and drapes himself back in his seat like a brat who’s about to be sent to time out. It’s like this barely matters to him except that it’s inconvenient or some shit. 

Fuck, that's not true. I know. But, he doesn’t get it. How could he when he’s so insanely comfortable with himself? 

The whole team is staring at me. Hoshiumi’s eyes are huge, and one of Sakusa’s eyebrows is almost touching his hairline. They all  _ know.  _ They know about me now.

My insides spike with shame and panic, and– I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s crushing me under the weight of blaring questions.

What am I gonna do? What can I possibly say to explain– Our Olympic jackets! People are gonna find out– Everyone’s gonna fucking find out–

The van stops, and I’m up, grabbing my bag. 

“Kageyama?” someone asks—maybe Iwaizumi, or Hibarida, I don’t know. All I do know is, I’ve gotta get outta here right the fuck now.

And no one follows me.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to Hades this has a happily ever after.
> 
> If you enjoyed this chapter, you can like or share the link on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lezblowshitup/status/1317474063695097856)
> 
> Here are all my [links](https://lezblowshtup.carrd.co/) :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you ever wanted to read trust fall sex, I hope you’ll be happy now ;P

My duffle is slapping my back, where it’s strapped over my middle, and I don’t know where I’m running. The Olympic Village buzzes around me like a machine. I’m the piece knocked loose, tripping over all the other cogs. I’m such an idiot, of course, someone was gonna notice our jackets. 

My face is hot, and there’s a throb behind my eyes—a pressure—like my brain is cooking and bulging out against the inside of my skull. Maybe it really would have been better if I’d died for real back in bed with Shouyou. 

I stumble to the ground. I don’t know where—just a side of some looming building. Gravel bites into my legs and a toothy plant itches the back of my neck as I rock my head between my knees. My throat is closing, lungs squeezing. It’s a long, long while before I can breathe again, but even then, I can’t go back.

I drift through the village—all clean-cut grass and slabs of sparkling sidewalks. The buildings fit together in a maze of angles and crooks like I’ve stepped right into a toy model, and I’m just the two-centimeter figurine propped up as a decoration.

I don’t feel any taller.

❖

It’s getting dark now. The lights lining the sidewalks and hidden in the bushes are flicking on, giving everything a chilly blue glow.

“Oi, Kageyama,” someone calls.

I lurch around, and my head spins. 

Spread out on the grass and under a clump of trees is Iwaizumi. And for a second, I don’t recognize the guy next to him cause it’s been seven years since I’ve seen him in person and he’s bigger, and his hair looks shorter, but Oikawa is sitting cross-legged with a foam tray of sauce-glazed takoyaki in his hands. 

He tilts his head at me and pops one in his mouth. (Probably he got them from one of the food stalls by the street.)

My stomach growls. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast, and now the dizziness is setting in. 

“Give him the food shitty-kawa. Look at him—he’s starving.”

“What? No way!” Oikawa hugs the tray to his chest. “I only got two bites.”

“Still haven't got a shred of decency, though, have you?” 

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines as Iwaizumi elbows him and grabs at the food.

"I bought it. I choose who eats it." He waves me over to pass me the tray.

Sitting with them, I shift my duffle to rest at my side and stuff an octopus ball in my mouth. It’s the greasiest thing I’ve had in half a year, and it tastes a lot like misery.

“Where have you been?” Iwaizumi’s face is flat as usual like everything bores him. “You know Hibarida’s breathing fire over you running off like that.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Oikawa steals two takoyaki back. “I saw that photo on Twitter earlier,” he says around a sloppy mouthful. “What are you gonna do, Tobio, hm?” 

Everyone really does know now then…

A new low, I guess.

It can't go on like this. I can’t just stay out here like some gutless asshole. I’ve gotta face it at some point, I know… But however peeled up at the edges I felt after that demo match, it’s worse now. So much worse. It’s like that picture tore my last bit of skin off all the way, and everyone can see my achy insides.

Oikawa folds his arms. “Let me guess—you’re thinking something like, _the whole world is watching us,_ right?”

I flinch and cover my face.

“You’re so obvious.” Oikawa snorts. “You thought you could just sleep with Shouyou and keep it a big secret? You’re Olympians now. What’d you expect?”

“That’s bullshit,” Iwaizumi says.

They’re sitting so close... 

The bed of grass under me is soaking through my sweatpants. Only now am I realizing that they're sitting on a blanket. But I’m so tired—it’s hard to care about the damp.

Iwaizumi sighs. “It’s normal to want to keep private things private.”

The blueish street lights throw shadows under Oikawa's cheekbones as he juts his nose up. “Shouyou doesn’t have anything to hide. We went to the Sao Paulo pride parade together, you know? It's the biggest in the world.”

Someplace in the back of my mind is turning over how Oikawa going to a pride parade means something, but mostly what’s hitting me is that he’s another person that’s been calling Shouyou by his first name, and Shouyou must’ve told him he was gay way before he told me. 

I have to ask. On the chance that I wasn’t the last one to find out. “So, you knew about him before?”

"Obviously." Oikawa leans back on the grass lazily. "I can't believe you just ran away as soon as people saw you were with him. Have you bothered thinking about how Shouyou has to feel now?”

Iwaizumi swats at his leg. “He just got outted. Why are you being such a dick?” 

"Because! He ran out on his boyfriend!"

“We were– It was only–” I grapple. 

“Only what?” Oikawa says. “Sex? That’s rich. Did you even ask him what he wants?”

“I fucking did.” The whole bit.

Iwaizumi squeezes my shoulder like he's soothing a spooked horse. “Good. That was really good.”

I’m not used to how nice praise feels coming from him. "I… asked Shouyou… but he didn’t say. Just turned the question back on me.”

“See, you’re too nice, Iwa-chan! I bet he just said something like, _let me eat all the sparkles off your ass_ , didn’t you, Tobio?”

My eyes stick to my duffle strap cause that’s sorta _woah_ and nasty and doesn’t do justice to all the things that happened between us or any of the stupidly confusing things Shouyou makes me feel—but it’s also not… totally… wrong.

“Why can't you two just date like normal people?” Iwaizumi asks, voice gentle.

“He doesn’t _wanna_ date me…”

Oikawa sags back on the blanket, flinging his arms over his eyes. “I give up.” 

“And I’d just hurt him,” I say cause I feel like he’s not getting it. Then, pulling at the roots of my hair, I mumble, “I’m too domineering. You’ve said it a hundred times.”

Oikawa clicks his tongue. “As if he’s not into that.”

“What? Getting hurt?” He can’t be serious. But, I guess he is cause Iwaizumi is glaring at him.

“Remind me how exactly _you_ know what he’s into?”

Oikawa gives a curled-lipped grin, and Iwaizumi’s eyes bug out. “You slept with him!”

“Calm down, you giant baby.”

“He’s your kohai, you animal!” Iwaizumi scrunches his nose all the way up. “That’s like sleeping with your child.” 

“They’re not our children!” Oikawa shoots up on his elbows, eyes wide. “That’s disgusting!”

I’m staring, and my mouth is hanging open, and I’m gripping the knees of my sweatpants so tight, my knuckles feel like they’re about to tear through skin, and I think Oikawa just grouped me in with Shouyou by accident, and I feel like I could kill him—tackle him and cram his mouth into the grass and make him choke on dirt—but another, louder, part of me feels weird and warm and I don’t know what to do with that. “Did you... really sleep with him?” 

“So what if I did?” Oikawa sticks his chin out at Iwaizumi. “Last time I checked, I’m allowed to sleep with anyone I want, same as you.” Then he throws a finger at me. “And _you_ need to focus! I’ve had enough of you two dancing around each other. Talk to Shouyou. Tell him you’re worthlessly in love with him. Then shut the hell up, so he has to respond.”

Iwaizumi is looking like his head is about to roll off his shoulders, but all I’m thinking is, oh, right... 

That’s the word for this feeling.

❖

Getting into the dorms is a nightmare. Security stops me at the gate to the building and has to call Coach Hibarida before they even let me through. But, cause I’ve got no idea where my room is, Hibarida actually has to come down and meet me in the wide-open lobby.

His face is red. The flossy hairs on his top lip stretch a twisted line down at the corners. “What did I tell you, Kageyama!” His cheeks ripple. “There’s no room for you to be this volatile. I can’t be worrying about your mood when I send you out on the court.”

I bow my head, closing off as much of myself as I can.

“You have some explaining to do for yourself. And don’t even think about lying to me.”

“I understand, sir.” 

The wrinkles around his eyes are even deeper than normal. “Don’t tell me it’s this thing between you and Hinata that’s responsible for your behavior lately?”

I clench my teeth. “You said not to lie, sir.”

Hibarida rubs his temples. “Son, I don’t care what you and Hinata do outside of the gym. But please be discreet.” He sighs, casting a look around the huge lobby, and lowers his voice. “The world believes our team will crumble before height and strength. We don’t need to add scandal to that list.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and nod stiffly. “Will you let me play, Friday?”

“I don’t know if I can trust you yet.”

“You can!” I cringe as my scratchy voice echoes.

“No.” Hibarida holds his hand up. “I need to do some thinking. And I believe you have some bridges to mend.”

He’s right.

Shouyou has filled all the best pieces of my life, but if I don’t make things right with him, I’m gonna lose everything we worked all these years to achieve. 

...If I haven't already.

❖

I square my shoulders at the door to Shouyou’s room. Or at least I hope it’s his room. This is the number Hibarida gave me. I adjust the strap of my duffle cause it’s aching where I’ve been holding it all day and knock. 

Shouyou swings open the door, and I barely get a look at his pajamas and rumpled hair before he’s shouting, “Tobio!" and bulldozing me into a hug that stops my heart for a sputtery moment until I remember why I’m here. Then it’s off to the races as Shouyou bursts out, "Where were you! I searched everywhere and– You just ran off! Are you mad? I didn't know what to– I froze up– I'm sorry, I didn't think about the jackets and I– You ran– Do you hate me?"

"No." I swallow. "And don't apologize.”

"But–"

I shake my head and cut him off. If I’m gonna do this, I need it to be somewhere private. "I’ve gotta talk to you. Will you come somewhere with me?"

❖

We head up a stairwell at the end of the hall and climb four tense flights to the roof.

It's all the way dark now. The half-moon is burned down to a gloom by the yellow spotlights. Those are pointed at a row of Japanese flags standing proud along the edge of the roof.

Shouyou stops a few paces away from me with squared shoulders and a pinched up bottom lip—a confusing jumble of expression I can’t begin to try picking apart.

The scrape of a train passing hisses in the distance.

I press my mouth together. There's no turning back. “I’m the one who should say sorry. I've been jealous.” The last time I said those words to him, we were first years—not even partners yet. Funny how things come full circle. I didn't see any of this coming. I was only jealous of his reflexes and jumps back then. Nothing like– “I hate it when you let other people call you Shouyou.”

He blows his cheeks out. “What are you saying? I thought we talked about that?”

I nod because he’s right, but then I shake my head, because no we really didn’t talk about it. He doesn’t know what _it_ is. How could he? I never told him. 

The flags are whipping in the breeze, snapping _ting tings_ on their aluminum poles. And there’s a drone of what’s got to be seven million AC units huffing and puffing through the muggy air. “It’s more than that. I hate it when other people come by you. And I hate that you’ve slept with all these guys and I–”

“I haven’t–”

“You slept with Oikawa,” I say cause I just know he’s about to deny it, and the raging jealousy inside me is screaming to be heard.

“He–” Shouyou stops and stares at me with wide eyes. “Who told you about that?”

“He did. I was just talking to him. Out there.” I gesture past the red-shot flags at the edge of the roof. It scares me now that I’m looking out over the blinking buildings that I don’t know where I was earlier. Everything looks different in the dark, and my mind is slanted. I’ve stumbled off the map into unmarked territory.

Shouyou’s shoulders sag, and he looks down at the concrete rooftop, biting his lip. “The stuff with Oikawa-San is none of your business.”

I grip the duffle strap at my stomach. “Miya’s into you. Did you sleep with him, too?”

“You know what”—he sticks his chest out—“I’ll sleep with the whole team if I want to!”

“You just said you weren’t–”

“Of course, I’m not!”

How fucking confusing can he be? I rub the backs of my eyelids. “Fine! You’re right—I _know_ it’s none of my business. I don’t get to care about it. But it bothers me.”

He smacks his palms to his forehead. “Well, I’m not messing around with Atsumu! How stupid are you? He’s straight, I think– I mean, he’s got like ten girls that he sees when he wants to get laid.”

What the fuck does it matter if he likes girls? “Maybe he’s not gay. People can be bi. Isn’t that what you said before?”

“Look, I’m not interested in him. Does it even matter?”

Maybe he has a point. I’m starting to think the problem isn’t that Shouyou has been with other people. If I’m being honest, maybe the thing that really hurts is that he doesn’t want to be with _me_ the way I want to be with him. 

My stomach is whooshing with a nauseous whorl I haven't felt since I was eight years old, on my way up a tree to retrieve a volleyball. I lost my footing that day and smashed three hard meters to the ground. 

“What if…” I say, breathing past the swell of nausea. “What if _I’m_ bi?”

“Then that's okay!”

_Is_ it okay? Safe? Am I really allowed to just… _be?_ “You don’t care?”

He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants and stares down at his slippered feet. “Did you think I would?”

I don’t know. _I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know_ – 

“Remember I told you about when we were in high school—how I wasn’t out? Neither of us should have to live a lie like that.”

“What about our careers?” Did the Black Jackals know he was gay before they brought him on? Will Japanese teams want us, now that our picture is everywhere?

He draws his shoulders in around his chest, lips wobbling. “Well, whatever.”

“That fuck do you mean, _whatever?_ ” I’m raising my voice.

“I mean, what else are we supposed to do? Huh?” he demands. “Live in fear? Lie about who we are? No way”—he whips his head back and forth—“I’m not doing that again! If it ruins my career, then that’s just how it’s gonna be. I’m not gonna lie down and take that without a fight.”

“But it’s volleyball!”

“I know it’s _fucking_ volleyball!”

I don't think he’s ever cursed at me before...

Shouyou scrubs his face. “It’s volleyball, but it’s me too, it’s my whole life… I can’t just take one or the other. Not anymore. Alright?” he asks weakly. “If I lose myself, even volleyball doesn’t feel good.”

Is that what I’ve been doing—losing myself so I could keep playing? Wrapping my arms around my sides, I say, “Yeah,” because I get. I get it so fucking much. 

And thanks to that photo, people are gonna assume they know the truth about me. I doubt I could stop them even if I tried. But I can’t stand the thought of Shouyou using the wrong words to describe me. It matters that at least he knows the real truth. “So that’s me—I’m bi.”

“You’re bi,” he echoes with a watery smile, nodding.

I’ve said it. It’s out. My chest is uncoiling with this unreal, desperate relief. Cause holy shit I can’t believe I finally said it, but there’s one last piece. Oikawa was right—I have to say this too. And I have to make him answer me. “Also, um…” My voice croaks.

That day I fell from the tree, I landed on my front in a violent, gasping _wham_ that broke my collarbone. It feels like the only way to get these next words out, to talk about this feeling I was never supposed to have, that I've hidden deep in my bones is by breaking one all over again.

“I…” Everything is pounding. 

Shouyou has been my reason to keep moving even before I met him, and even if there’s no way he’ll return me feelings, I don’t think he’ll ever stop making up my entire world. “I….” for fucks sake– “I love you.”

Shouyou drags his hands to his mouth, and his silence vibrates with the mechanical AC wheeze that sucks at my eardrums for a terrible moment until he asks, “Wha-what did you just say?”

No use pretending now that I’ve said it. What's one more confession at this point? “I’m in love with you. I’ve been–I love you.” I'm hiding my face in my elbow. “I love you _so_ much–” 

“Tobio–stop!” He’s shaking, huffing short, sharp breaths. “Oh my god, I can’t– Wasn’t it just sex?” His chin trembles. “Didn’t you _say_ that was all you wanted?”

I’m blinking past the burning wet in my eyes. No, fuck no. I said I wanted _him_. I want _all of him_ , but yeah, okay I didn't do a good job explaining– “I’m sorry– I’m sorry. I want _so_ much more than that.”

“You–” His words die in a strangled choke in the back of his throat. “ _Seriously?_ ” He grabs me by the front of my shirt, driving against me. “Since when?”

“I-I don’t know, since you said I could call you Shouyou. Or before then– Fuck. I don’t know– Forever?”

“No! Not forever, don’t say that-that’s– I’ve–” his voice breaks. "You stupid, _copycat!_ ” He wipes his brimming eyes. “How can you do this to me now? I’m the one who loves _you_.”

“You love me?” My ears are ringing, and I’m reeling like I’ve dropped three meters to the ground, like I’m staring up through the branches, woozy, wondering if I’m still alive. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I needed you!" he shouts, crying fat, actual tears, rushing toward me. "You're my person! I thought if I told you I’d lose you for sure.”

“You couldn’t…" That's not fair. Not fair when I’m bursting from the inside with this feeling I can't get out. I’m fending off his grappling fists, catching him low around the small of his back, and crushing him up to me. “How could you even think–” The words lodge in my swollen throat. 

I need him too. Without Shouyou, the world doesn’t fit together right. I don’t know how to make him understand—how to reach him. All I can do is squeeze him tighter as he racks sobs against my chest. And yeah, maybe he’s not the only one crying.

I don’t know how long we stand here holding each other before I’m ready to try talking again.

“Shouyou,” I whisper, voice scratching over the syllables. “You fucking dumbass.” I’ve already seen all the worst parts of him—the greedy, selfish, ruthless, perfect bratty contradiction that he is. “There’s literally nothing you could do to lose me.” 

“Yeah, well"—he snuffles a booger back—"same for you.”

Shouyou sees the best in people, so he doesn’t know… I smash our foreheads together. “Even if I want too much?”

“Don’t decide what’s too much for me,” he says, pulling back to glare at me, but his anger hits a lot less hard with his face this much of a mess. 

I’m scared that with the way Shouyou gives affection so easily, what he wants and what I want aren't the same thing. “Oikawa... I think he and Iwaizumi are together, but it’s not like only them, right?”

“Are you seriously gonna start asking about me sleeping with him again cause I’ll–”

“No!” I’m not. Honestly, I’m not sure I even care anymore. It was never about sex, to begin with. “I’m just trying to say–” I look down. “I can't be like that. I can't do that.”

“Duh, I know that already.”

“You know? How could you know?”

"Cause it's _you_." He shrugs, throat bobbing with a swallow. “I want you all to myself anyway. You don’t get how much I’ve thought about you–” He inhales a steadying breath. “I’ve been in love with you a long time, Tobio…”

I'm losing to the blur in my vision. How am I supposed to stand this overfull feeling? How am I allowed this when– “I’m messed up, though. I think I’ve been doing stuff to make you rely on me.”

Shouyou snorts through tears, rolling his eyes. “Whatever. I don't believe you.” 

Then he's wrestling out of my arms (where the fuck is he going?), climbing up onto the ledge of the roof, and grabbing the flagpole. Halfway to standing, he wobbles, and I almost choke on my tongue, lurching to catch him.

“Careful!” I shout. “I’m not carrying you down again.”

Shouyou ignores me, staring out over the city and all the blinking red airway lights, balancing on my shoulder. I bet he knows I’m lying through my teeth. And, yeah, he’d be right. I’ll jump at any excuse to hold onto him for dear life.

Closing his eyes, Shouyou inhales the muggy breeze. Exhales... _two, three, four times._ For once, I know exactly what he's thinking. I'm thinking it, too—how the hell did we make it here?

When he opens his eyes again, he loops the toe of his slipper into the bend of my arm.

I’m already raising my hands to catch him as he slides down against me, lips grazing the shell of my ear as he whispers, “The stuff that you do, you better not stop, cause you make me feel really _really_ loved.” 

Shivering, I press my face into the bend of his neck. “I want… Half the time, I want to eat you up and suck you dry.”

He gives a lazy hum that vibrates against my forehead. "As if you _could_.”

No, how does he still not understand? “My love isn’t nice and fuzzy.”

Shouyou crooks my chin up with his thumb, locking me in his lidded eyes, a grin splitting his cheeks like a butcher's cleaver. “Who says _mine_ is?”

❖

I don’t make it to my room.

This has been the longest day of my life. My head is nothing but smoke and noise as I carry Shouyou down the stairs and this endless hallway to his room, clinging to the rhythm of his breathing as he nips at my earlobe. 

_It’s fine_ , I tell myself. This building is locked down. Nobody’s around. It’s fine to hold him. I need this. Right now, his touch is the only thing grounding me.

Less than a heartbeat through the door, Shouyou’s mouth is smashed to mine—soft and wet from all the salty tears that tingle on my lips when he pulls away enough for me to lose my duffle somewhere at the foot of the bed and stumble together onto a thin blue blanket. His blanket. It smells like him.

“–want you,” he lashes the words straight from my lips, tearing out of his shirt.

I press against him, grabbing at his sweatpants, yanking them down his legs. 

Shouyou is not gentle. He drags at the neck of my jacket, clawing the zipper undone, rushing against me with his hips.

I want so much more—to touch him, hold him, flip him, push him down– I fist his bangs and shove his head back into the blanket, tearing a broken sound from him.

No– I jolt away. What’s wrong with me– Why did I– 

Shouyou rolls his hips up, eyes so hooded his pale lashes clip the tops of hot cheeks. “Why'd you stop?”

Panic is lodged high in my throat. This room is small. A bed. A side table. Duffles already split open on the floor. The walls feel close, squeezing. “You–”

“C'mon.” He locks a knee over my shoulder. “I liked it.”

I bring my hand to his bangs, twisting the hair a little, and as Shouyou's eyes slide shut, he leans into the pull. 

Tightening my grip the slightest bit, I hike his knees up against his chest and slide our hips closer. I like him like this—all scrunched up under me.

It’s dim. The lights are off. I don’t think about my face. Just feeling him, turning into him, scratching at the edge of my control–

Shouyou jams my chin with the heel of his palm. “Is this you sucking me dry?" 

I seize his wrists, growling, wrestling them over his head to hold him against the mattress. 

“Yes— _ahh_ —like that." He rocks up into me, jerking, wriggling—wrenching at my grip as I bite into his shoulder. If he wants me to hold him down so much, why won’t he hold the fuck still? 

“Stop resisting!”

“Can’t you handle it?” he taunts with another lurch under me.

My grip narrows on his wrists. Has he lost his mind? “I could be too rough on you.”

Shouyou moans through a grin. “Like how?”

I stare at him, barely keeping down a shiver of excitement cause I don’t understand why he’s acting like this. Talk is hard, but I have to. I have to. I can’t know unless I ask. “What do you want. Exactly?”

He watches me through his lashes. “You. Inside me.” And I must take too long to respond—blinking through the unreality of all the sounds that just came out of his mouth and the thing they string together to mean—because he frowns. “Do you _not_ want that?” 

My jaw is a fused hinge.

“I mean, it’s okay if you don’t. Not everyone does. That’s totally normal– We can just—um—we can–”

“I do,” I choke out—famous last words.

Shouyou stops, licks his lips, pulls out of my lax grip, and I hold my breath as he strips the rest of the way as my eyes burn over the down down down of his middle and naked hips. More and more of him I need to touch. 

“Take off your clothes too,” he says.

I peel my t-shirt over my head and untie the drawstring at my waist with shaking hands. He tips over the side of his bed, rummaging through one of the three stuffed-to-the-brim-bags he insisted on bringing. When he springs back up, I’ve got my boxers and sweatpants—my last sliver of protective skin—pushed to my knees. He can see all of me—aching and red—and he’s got something.

My hands are still shaking with unreleased tension as he passes me a plastic bottle. Lube. This is lube. Fuck. Fuck. Lube is for– We’re really doing this. 

Clicking it open, I squeeze a sticky gob onto my fingers. I don’t know how much to use, but this is probably too much.

Shouyou doesn’t complain, only tilts his head and asks, “You know what to do?”

I swallow so my voice won’t come out choked. “Sort of.” I have this storage of information—things I've heard, things I've seen during the rare times I strayed on the internet. How did I ever convince myself this was something I didn't want?

He takes my free hand and kisses it. “I’ll tell you if I want you to do something different with your fingers, okay?”

I think I manage a nod before he stretches back onto the sheets, stretching his belly where his boxers left a pinkish imprint, spreading and lifting his legs, not letting my hand go. I can see all of him, naked and under me. 

How did this happen? Is this even real?

I feel disconnected from my body as I watch my hand raise to touch him. Like the volume of the world is fizzling out, then flaring back in, louder, as the pad of my middle finger rubs against his tight O of muscle with a soft smacking sound of opening. 

Shouyou flinches. Is it the angle? I shift and go slow—rubbing, coaxing, again, again. I can feel him letting go by the shuddering around my finger, by the laze of his calves against my shoulders. His body is almost as familiar as my own, even if this part is new.

I'm aching as Shouyou draws our clasped hands to his lips. He flicks his tongue over my knuckles, sucks my middle finger into his mouth, and drags it against the serrated edge of his teeth like I'm a cut of beef he wants to lick clean from the bone.

"–love your hands," he mumbles. I’m only catching every couple of words between his sloppy punched out sounds, but they’re already too much. “Make me feel— _nng_ —good— _mhm_ —setter hands.”

I'm so hard it's almost painful, but it still seems way too soon when he’s raising his hips to meet my fingers, saying, “More.”

I give it to him, anyway—pushing another finger in and out of him until my arm aches, but he throws his hips up against me like it’s nothing. “Stop holding back on me—I can tell!”

“Want me to fucking hurt you?” I demand, buried in him to the third knuckle. “That it?” 

“Shut up! You _never_ let me get hurt.”

He's right. I know his limits when he plays. When he can hit, and when he’s done. But that’s volleyball. If I mess this up– I can’t– If I mess this up–

He leans up and pushes our faces together, grabbing me by the sides of my head. "Tobio, listen to me. _Trust me_. I'm here. You're not gonna scare me away."

Something gives inside me because this feels like a promise, and he’s never broken our promises before.

I’m flipping him over, skimming his ribs, dragging hips up where I want them, flattening my hand on his turned spine.

I give him three fingers at once, curled deep.

He groans. “That’s so good.”

Yes, fuck– My chest is puffing. I’m making him feel good.

He takes himself in hand and moans as I slap him away. That’s for me to do. He’s gonna finish by _my_ hand. 

“Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah”—Shouyou drives back onto me—“I’m ready. Need you inside me.”

_He needs me. He needs me. He needs–_ I think I’m mouthing it as I pull my fingers out. I'm done arguing. I'm done pretending that this isn't everything I want. 

I line up as fast as I can and gasp into the narrow heat of him. It’s so much I can barely take it like my blood is a quarter lava. Like every one of my nerves is glowing red-hot. 

His breath hitches, and I freeze. Inhale. Exhale. I can do this. _Words_. Say them! He needs to hear it. “Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop.”

"I know,” Shouyou whines through a pant. “You’ve always got me.” He arches low, pressing his face to the blanket, muffling, “I’m ready.”

The tops of my thighs are sticky slick against him as I sink further inside. My lungs are swelling behind my ribs. A piece of my mind is shutting off. I’m losing myself to the sensations. 

Shouyou is moaning, drawn around me in a perfect clench, trying to pull me inside further as I push into him. He can take more. I’ve got more. So much more.

I've got him grasped in my hand—slippery with lube—faster and faster just how he likes. I don’t have anything left in me to hold back, high on this mad clash of control **—** him under me, the rhythm of grinding and pounding—and absolute surrender because I– Who am I kidding? I’ll do anything he wants. I’m here to please him.

I'm gonna live inside him. Let him slice into me, bleed me dry, suck the marrow of my bones out through his teeth—eat me alive.

I don't want to rush, but I want more and harder. I want it to last forever, do whatever I want to him, I can– I can– 

The tension at the base of my spine is spinning undone. My limbs are unreeling. 

He’s trembling, crying a sound that I'd call a moan if it had an end. It feels like I’ve hit the brink of something, like a broken bone is shifting beneath my skin, scraping back into place.

Then I’m crushing him to me by his throat, painting him with kisses, groping at his front, and chanting how perfect he is. Something warm and wet is dripping over his belly.

“Shouyou-Shouyou,” I’m saying over and over. “Love you.” It’s easier to say this time, like a lock inside me has broken open.

The world is flattening out. My chest stretches full past comfort. I think I might be crying. Everything between us, suddenly, is making sense. This is how we were meant to be from the beginning. 

No wonder.

❖

When I manage to drag our sticky, sweaty bodies from the bed to the shower, I wash Shouyou’s hair. But once all the suds have swirled down the shower drain, I’m too exhausted to bother dragging us back out to dry off, and he’s no help.

Shouyou is folded in my lap, running his fingers over the bump in my collar bone. I guess the thing about broken bones is that if you treat them right, they heal back stronger.

I’m kissing his forehead and stroking the pudge of his cheek as the water washes over us. No matter how old he gets, his cheeks stay just as full. 

My finger trails to his upper lip, to where it leads down into a V at the seam. I want to fit that little peak between my teeth and call it mine. I want to inhale how he looks right now—all slow and sated—fill my chest with it, and never breathe again.

Shouyou blinks blearily at me. "You really do love me, huh?" 

I snort, hugging his head to my shoulder. "Yeah,” I admit. “I really love you."

“Hm...” I feel his smirk drag at my skin. “Good.”

Absolute fucking menace. What did I tell you?

❖

Three days pass in the dorms before the matches begin, and I don’t ever move into my room. If we’re being real, I lost the slip of paper Hibarida gave me with the room number, and I’ve got no plan to look for it. 

The opening ceremony to the games is just as loud and confusing as Brazil’s with weird performances, flag dances, and speeches that go on forever about the Olympic flame’s symbolism. I don’t really get what it’s supposed to mean. Ushijima said something about modernity and tradition, but that sounded like putting nice words together to say nothing to me. 

Things have been a little awkward with the others in the practice gym, but less every day.

The parade is an explosion of people frothing at the mouth with excitement but staying in their neat, country-color-coded rows. We’re walking in the belly of all the noise. I still don’t know if I’ll be starting on Friday, and this seems like a waste of valuable practice time right before our first match.

“I never asked you what Hibarida told you when you got back to the dorms,” Shouyou says, holding my hand. 

With this enormous crowd around us, holding hands is probably dangerous. But, he hasn't pulled away yet, and I’m done forcing distance between us when all I want to do is hold him close. “He said, not to make a scandal for Japan.” 

“That's about what he said to me, too, after you left.” Shouyou squeezes my palm. "You know, I've been thinking…"

I glance at him. 

He’s bowing his head, frowning. "Maybe the Great King had it right—staying in Argentina, I mean. He's free there. He’s got a future."

A week ago, hearing Shouyou call anything Oikawa has done _right_ probably would've made me sick with jealousy. But the jealousy doesn't come. Instead, I finger the material of the red jersey I'm wearing and say, "Yeah, maybe."

I've got a lot to think about too.

❖

I’m starting. Hibarida waits until the day before our match to tell all of us. After he gives his decision, Miya corners me in the locker room and snaps, “Don’t think I’m just gonna sit by and let you have everything.”

_Everything._ Not volleyball. Not Shouyou. Everything.

I fucking knew he was interested in him. It’s exactly the sort of slippery jab I should’ve expected from Miya.

Well, I’ll fight tooth and claw to be the one to stay on the court. He’s gotta know that by now.

...But as far as Shouyou goes, it’s not up to him. Or me even. So I shrug his hand off my shoulder, say, “Sorry, it was up to Shouyou,” and walk away.

❖

With Shouyou at my side, I have nothing else to fear as we walk through the hall of Ariake Arena. We’re surrounded by players we’ve been fighting with and against since we were kids, and Oikawa is waiting for us right through those doors.

It feels like I’ve been the one waiting, though, ever since Shouyou and I teamed up against him at the start of high school. Earlier maybe. Oikawa is the first real setter to ever challenge me. And Shouyou’s my first real partner. I guess this really is a family quarrel like Iwaizumi said.

Argentina versus Japan.

Shouyou and me versus Oikawa. 

Ushijima is pretty hyped too—standing straighter than normal, which is saying something for a brick like him. He’s got some kinda history with Oikawa too cause of nationals, I think. 

My heart rate is picking up with the rhythm of all our steps in this echoey hall.

"Tobio,” Shouyou says as he swings his arms behind his head. “We're gonna keep going and going today until we can't anymore. Got it!”

“Japan hasn't taken gold since the seventies.”

He squints at me, mouth sharpening to a blade. "You saying you're _not_ fighting for gold today?"

Shouyou will mince and pulverize me into whatever shape it takes to win. And I fucking love that he's like that. He’s always been the one to push me forward. Why should this be any different? So I square my shoulders and say, "Fuck no." We're gonna take every team above us down one by one.

“That’s what I thought." Shouyou tosses his chin up. "Besides, it's not over here, no matter what. We’re gonna keep playing.”

That hungry grin of his… He’s got me fast and loose and filled to overflowing.

My fingers itch to touch a ball. 

As we cross through the entrance to the court, a screaming glare of light hits me along with a clean-scrubbed smell zinging with the sharp chemical afterbite of salonpas. Shouyou is sucking it in like he’s trying to get buzzed—and Oikawa is already stalking over, about to make his threats, probably. 

Only, he's not looking at me.

“Iwa-chan!” he calls. "I want that thing you promised me."

Iwaizumi is at my side in his national polo, bored as ever. He waves Oikawa closer, snags the collar of his candy blue jersey, and pulls him into a kiss.

There’s a hush in the arena that breaks into a confused mix of cheering and murmuring.

The kiss only lasts a second—then, Oikawa sweeps away and struts past me, sticking his tongue out. "Don’t think you can steal all the glory now.” 

My jaw is falling slack cause he’s just handed me a gift…

Cause now it’s not just me and Shouyou, that everyone is watching. _We’re not alone._ Oikawa can play it off all he likes, but...

This is the nicest thing he has ever done for me.

Also, it's a challenge. 

And I don't back down from his challenges. 

Shouyou is already vibrating at my side. It's bright and loud, and there are twelve thousand people in this arena, but I'm okay. Everything is in its place, and I’m done caring what anyone thinks. So I lean down.

“There's no going back now,” Shouyou says before I can close the distance between us. “Kiss me, and I'm keeping you for good.”

“Dumbass.” I fit our lips together and whisper against him, “You’ve had me." I could care less about the scattered reaction from the crowd. All that matters is Shouyou’s lips—warm, fitted between mine—and the smile I can feel curving at their ends, now curving at the ends of my lips too cause he’s contagious and our lines are all blurred together. 

Partners for good. I’ll take that deal. 

I’ll go wherever I’ve gotta to stay with him. 

❖

Now it’s finally time to draw our teeth and claws and blades to carve out our victory.

Shouyou slicks across the court—fluid as blood—freer than anything I’ve ever seen. 

As a kid, I spent so much time angry with teammates that couldn't stay on my level. But they were just normal humans. They couldn’t help it.

Shouyou is not normal. He's a monster butcher.

Even better, he’s mine.

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So… I don’t think I’ve ever put so much of my heart into anything I’ve written. There were so many points while writing this that my chest was physically sore from channeling all Kags’ anxiety and fear so I could try and do it justice with my writing. It’s kinda hard to believe that the story is over now. After everything I put Kags and Hinata through in this fic, I really needed them to both be okay, and now they are (thank, Aphrodite). 
> 
> Here’s an educational link to more info about [BDSM power exchanges](https://bound-together.net/trust-bdsm-relationship/) for anyone interested. I feel like the unbelievable trust involved in a healthy BDSM relationship goes under-appreciated.
> 
> I hope I managed to reach your heart with this not-short-fic / not-long-fic thing I wrote. If you enjoyed this story, you can like/share my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/lezblowshitup/status/1320011460790145024) link. That really helps me out. Come chat with me in my DMs! I'm always looking for more Kagehina-lover friends.
> 
> Here are all my [links](https://lezblowshtup.carrd.co/) :)
> 
> Thank you, guys. <3


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